Embodiment

My surroundings often portray the picture of my brain, if I'm feeling good and happy and productive, my space will always be in order, clean and with as little clutter as I can muster, given that my room is about 8m2.
I've never thought of how much of my life I've spent in my room, here in my house in Palma, in the US, in Buenos Aires...
The room I grew up in, was the size of a very large studio, 30m2, and 5m high ceilings, I had everything that gave my life, either meaning, purpose or good memories, even bad ones at times.
In that gigantic room, specially for a pre-teen, I had french style furniture, two desks, my big gas radiator, that gave heat to most of the house at winter time, I woke up innumerable times to my mom yelling at me because there was a pile of clothes in the way to her room, and she would trip over them. I had a few sofas and countless books scattered around, as the neatness of my personality kicked in, when I was a young adult. I even had a basement, painted pink with discarded pieces of whatever didn't fit the space upstairs.
I was filling the space as I mostly lived there, whenever I had people over, we would go to my room, even at 24, the last year I lived there, arguably already a full adult, and no longer going to the room to play with toys, but to talk with my friends, have coffee or tea, make plans for the night ahead, countless adult sleepovers, and many lovers too.
The clutter in my room at a young age, came from the usual, our brains are not fully settled into their ways, so everything was everywhere. As I grew in that room, things started having their place, and I would notice a pen out of its rightful spot.
I mostly lived out of my suitcases in the US, so is not much of a comparison, however, once I came here, and had an actual room again, I guess I had hope, even though I was nowhere I'd ever thought I'd be, I saw a little light, after dark times in the US, in a lot of aspects.
My room had barely anything on it, I had no work permit yet, so no money, neither did my mom at the time, and I had the cheapest futon, a 2 drawer little dresser, a few boxes with clothes and shoes from the opposing season, and a thrift store vanity.
As I had hope, and was fairly content, everything was in place, however when tensions started brewing I stopped swiping everyday, I left clothes and shoes all over, I had only a few books, at disarray and it mostly stayed that way until the day came in which, mom and me moved to our current apartment.
A lot of things happened here and still it doesn't feel like anything's changed at all, I still have the same default setting in my brain, if I feel good, my room looks good.
Right now I feel numb and fearful and in pain, and my room is a huge mess, even more so because I have an insane amount of furniture for such a little space, but taking a look around I couldn't help noticing that nothing has a place, except  for my books and make up, I hoard everything that doesn't have a place, anywhere else in the house, but it's not like I have a place to put those things either, so I just pile on any place I see free at the moment, I don't feel better looking around my room right now, and even my safe haven, has been vilified by my pain and fear.
I have changes to make to my room, and I can't even find the strength to put a few things on my desk neatly away. I'd like to believe things pass, as it's the nature of life, but this pain is a new kind for me, and up in my mind I know I have to let myself feel this way, but I also don't want to feel this way? So it becomes a battle between mind and heart, that my mind doesn't want to lose, but it cannot win either.
So here I sit, a mess of a cluttered room around my limp body, my ailing cat scared of loud noises on the bookshelf by the printer, and I can just keep the tears at bay, so she doesn't feel like she has to comfort me, when in fact, I am suffering so she doesn't have to.

Melodic Mind

I have a sound inside my mind, that is trapped and can't get out.

The soothing music escapes the grasp of my understanding, and yet so entrancing, 

urging me to find what action it expects from me...

Is it the sorrow and my swan song? or is it a dawn of the purest, palest blue, singing for me to wake up?

Its melody is not one I recognise, nor one I'd be able to replicate, but it turns my attention its way,

with no precedent or reason, beckoning to my philosophical nature to soar.

This is the weird inner work of my melodic brain, trapped between wisdom and ignorance in its eternal paradox of existence.

Stages

Must of us know the stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance, but, with no intention to undermine any psychologists, I believe I have found some new ones, or maybe some more accurate ways to portray and inform those stages. (nobody can prepare you to grieve)

Denial, you clearly know what is happening or happened or is in the very imminent future going to happen, and this is just our simple way of not killing ourselves over our grief. We don't deny what's happening we only try, usually unsuccessfully, to bury our pain so it doesn't kill us, because that's what we feel it will do to us.

Anger is a natural and instant response from me for most things, so I know first hand how it feels and how it works my whole system, mind, body, soul, everything. So I don't believe anger is an accurate stage of grief, moreover, I believe it might be called indignation, or impotence, because all anger is doing here is pushing your face to the fact that your grief is real and there's nothing you nor nobody else can do about it.

Bargaining always felt a little weird to me, as there's nothing to bargain with, sometimes we wish we'd live in a fictional magical world where you can trade your eternal soul to save the life of someone you love, or a broken dream, but, here in the real world, this doesn't make sense. There's nothing we can offer, to anyone to fix our ailing, and there's only the built up frustration of being completely helpless in a situation, that even if it's not your first, you'd love to change for the better, but will never be able to.

Depression, now this is completely accurate, however maybe an understatement. When you're literally waiting for the death of a loved one and you've gotten to this stage, depression can come out of nowhere, or non at all, sometimes sadness, as the little brother, is filling in for the eldest. Desperation comes to mind as well as sadness or depression are feelings we are indoctrinated to avoid, which also sometimes leads to shame, a shame nobody should feel for grieving, on top of all the feelings we know and understand, and all the ones that we didn't even knew we had bouncing like rubber balls, all agains our hearts, SHAME is the one that should be an spectator and not an active participant. However feelings in this situations, have full command, and you can't pull the remote from shame's hand. Also, at this stage, fear plays an incalculable roll, as we're unsure and fearful of what will come afterwards, I'm not a fearful person per-se but that's not to say I'm not afraid of anything, I usually charge almost blindly into the unknown and deal with whatever it brings, but this new kind of fear, has me stuck in a way I've never felt stuck before.

Acceptance, this comes as a bit of a surprise to myself as to how easy is to accept something, and still be firmly set in all previous stages all at once. Acceptance doesn't meen I agree what's going on is as it should be, it doesn't make me feel any better knowing that the best I can do is suffer in place of a loved one, acceptance for me comes in the way of resilience: you suffer, you never accept or get over your grief, but you survive, because the love you feel, is what brings the pain and suffering that you're also feeling, which in a weird and paradoxical way, makes this, the pinnacle of our pain, worth it.

Marie

How easy it is, to grow up, to complain about trivial stuff, worry about money, daydream about what you'd do with more money than you'll ever make, and share your impossible dreams with the family that we choose, even, share some sorrows between drinks, or coffee.

Nothing prepares you for the grief of loosing someone you love, of watching the most pure love you've experienced wither away, and painfully purr on your chest so your crying can be eased.

Six years are not enough, nor would have been enough a hundred, but shock takes its toll on an already tragic situation.

It's the first time that I have to personally make the choice to put a pet to sleep, and it's the worse feeling in the world knowing you're doing the best you, or anyone can do, and that very thing, is the thing that's destroying your heart, turning it inside out, and shredding it to bits.

My gramma used to say that the pain never gets better or goes away, you merely get used to feeling it, having this pain with me, raw and new, and bleeding, I wonder how can we get used to such ineffable things, and, moreover, expose ourselves, willingly to go through it again, and again.

Marie came into our lives almost hairless, and with only a few whiskers, she'd been on the streets for what our vet thought were about six months, and we instantly fell in love with her. Tiny little thing, purring in our arms the minute we picked her up. 

We rehabilitated her, her hair and whiskers grew and she was happy, albeit a little skittish around plastic bag noises, God only knows what happened on her first six months of life.

She filled our lives with endless love, the most curious little kitten you've ever seen, and always looking for something to play with.

Made the trip from Buenos Aires all the way to Palma to reunite with us, scared but thankful to be reunited with her family. She came to purr on my chest whenever she felt I was scared, or anxious, or when I had a hard day at work. She rarely kissed you, but when she did you knew it was the purest kiss you would ever receive. 

Now, at six years and seven months, she has incurable cancer, and even walking is a huge task for her. She'll be gone in a few days, and my soul will forever be missing a piece of itself, she gave me life and hope with a single purr, and all I can do is make her comfortable on her last days.

This pain is numbing and at the same time it's making me feel more than I ever knew I could, the grief, half a life stolen from a little angel, that deserved more than I could ever give her, but unconditionally stood by my side all her life, and I will be her to her last breath.

I will forever miss you and love you my whiskered, purring, stripped little angel.

Admiration

I have different kinds of admiration for all my friends, however the most present at the moment is the one taking on two college careers at the same time, after half a lifetime of being afraid she wouldn't be able to, which in my humble opinion, she is more than capable, but fears tame our most simple dreams quite often, so I can see her point.

I admire her even more now, as we're both reluctant adults, and she is doing something I'm still afraid to tackle, and in seeing her charging fearlessly(ish) into her assignments, not only I am awed by her, but also inspired, yet I can't help wondering if when my time comes, I will have the same fervor for it, or if I will sluggishly drag myself through college, maybe I'll smugly assume it will be easy and it will crush me and test my frustration threshold beyond my wildest fears...

Even as I helped my brain stay active a lot, studying is never the same as simply reading, but as she gave me even another reason to do it: I owe it to myself to do it, and somehow I will.

Poetry's Importance

The problem is not how she writes her book, is how it contributes to the building of ignorance of the masses.

People don't jump to "easily digestible" content because it's enriching, it's in the name... we are a generation too used to instant gratification, in any media, and it only dulls our brains and bends our will.

There's not gonna be anything to learn or take from it, because it's not making any new connections in your brain at all. 

It's not even a question good or bad, it's about what you want your legacy to be, if your only aim is to get famous from it, well done darling, you are on the right path, but fame is hollow and will never sustain a healthy or whole way of life.

At this stage, is not even her fault to pass the issue without taking notice, but it's our duty as maybe the last salvageable generation, to point out our own mistakes and sometimes good intentions gone awry, in a respectful and constructive manner.

Fear of fire

Respect, taught by our families,

a principle passed on through generations.

This, somehow, got lost in translation.

At some point self-respect was lost,

and with it, respect for everything else.

Tension is high nowadays, and we don't understand

how good we have it, or how catastrophic it could get.

Ignorance is a choice nowadays, and yet people actively seek it.

How's our future looking when freedom is sold so cheap?

Hope is in low supply, and hard though as it is, we need it,

need that little star shining brighter, and we have to be that,

for ourselves, for our loved ones, and for the good of humankind.

People never held any particular interest to me,

we have what we have created, and given, but are rapidly destroying it.

Maybe we're beyond salvation, maybe it even is a mercy to be.

There will be no legacy, only peril and destruction if we keep

choosing ignorance over knowledge, fear and submission over our own voices.

Kindness, care, selflessness are not pure, nor are we, but there's still,

pureness in the intent, and in our own selfishness to feel better.

We are beyond help, but can still salvage our legacy and rise.