apology

dave 2011

i wish i could love you better, world:
i try so hard to learn from you, hear you, see you, really touch you,
to connect with you, all-life-on-Earth
more fully, to be present with you,
to stop my head from keeping me apart from you,
from referring to you in the second person,
from keeping me
afraid to really know your suffering,
afraid to care too much,
afraid of your cold, your complexity, your darkness, your dangers,
afraid to just be, to be a part of you.


i wish i could love you better, people:
struggling, wretched, foolish, wounded human species
of which i also am a part.
but you exhaust me, infuriate me, demand so much of me.
it’s hard enough just tending my own grief, my own damage,
my own agony in this hellish, reckless soul-devouring culture
we have built, with the best of intentions.
how can you be so blind, so unchallenging of what you’re told,
so cruel?
how can you be otherwise?
i need to be free of you, miserable, sickly, narcissistic, arrogant bipeds.
i’m sorry i am so intolerant, so undisciplined, so unengaged,
so indifferent to your terrible knowledge, your tragedy,
so impatient, so relentlessly pessimistic,
so apologetic.


i wish i could love you better,
you, the lovely complicity of cells standing here in my arms,
you whose simple presence evokes in me such joy, provokes
this flush of chemicals that addict me and drown me
in the sense of happiness and peace and passion and invulnerability
and the mad illusion that my life has meaning,
that i really know you, and
that we are, if not one mind, at least one body.
but i cannot be what (i think) you want,
and in the end i know i am and must be alone,
that i love most of all solitude and stillness
and the impossible beauty of my imagination,
the safety of my own, solitary cells.
i am a child and can only be not-me so long
before i return 
to being nothing,
just waiting.
for what i do not know.


i am sorry for the pain i’ve caused
and for wasting your time, and mine
and for not being who i’m not.

(photo of the author by cheryl long, esperance, australia, march 2011)

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2 Responses to apology

  1. Karen says:

    You channeled my thoughts today.

  2. bart raguso says:

    Dave, thank you for being brave enough and strong enough to share your real feelings. I cannot say I know exactly how you must feel, but I have also some similar emotions and thoughts from time to time, sometimes multiple times in the course of the same day. Just retain your ‘witnessing mode’, being the observer of the fleeting clouds of our feelings as they flit across the sky of our mind. There is no one who has a heart who has never had dark thoughts about our era. We cannot help but be affected by the sadness and tragedy of our hurleyburley world. Please allow me to share the following with the hope, as in any support group, knowing you are not alone in your feelings, and more empathetic people sometimes feel the pain more keenly. So on a Sunday I offer this:

    Evil thoughts about life-Wednesday, 5th of June, 2013-Let me understand what I think I know, to wit:

    0. The world is good, God is Great, life is sweet, and all life shares the same spirit and the same breathe.

    1. We are not alone, thinking one is alone is an illusion, we just do not see all the ways we are connected to others and to life.

    2. We have limited abilities and are bound into the fabric of life and death by our form and our nature.

    3. We are called here by God and by life’s yearning and desire to touch and to be touched and though we exist in a material world, we are intimately tied to His world of Spirit.

    4. Most of what we call the universe or reality or God is invisible to us, and all good and great things come from our spirit, that which is on the inside. What we see on the outside is the smallest part of reality, but still an important one.

    5. There are no separations between us. Only our minds create categories and boxes and words which split our awareness and our self-image into dualistic concepts like mind and
    body.

    6. The greatest good is to do no evil. Until we have an accurate picture of who we are and how we connected to the big picture, we will not have the emotional maturity to stop hurting each other.

    7. What we do is more important than what we think, but what we think determines what we do. The means determine the ends, the ends do not justify the means.

    8. Our individual and collective narcissism is about being stuck in the infantile delusion that we are more important than we are.

    9. Whatever we think, it is more than that. Incredible String Band

    10. Remember, even if you do not believe in God, God still believes in you.

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