The inevitability,
A staccato muted drum
Spaced at an interval far enough apart
As to render it barely perceptible
Beneath the ebb and flow of the daily mundane.
It waits,
Subtly tugging with barely the friction
Of a thick carpet pile’s drag, pushing with the resistance of a mild headwind.
Just present enough to remind you that eventually,
The time will come.
© pinarosana 2024
It wasn’t the secondhand of an asynchronous clock; it was the cord rattling on a ceiling fan.
It takes a mirror to see yourself.
Sometimes, that mirror is a person.
When I was sicker than I have been in years, recently, someone I cared about insisted that I give them 3 things I was grateful for. I played along, but it literally took me almost an hour to come up with them and I never felt good about the answers I gave. I’ve been unsettled by it, and by that person, ever since. I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt and credit good intentions for their effort, because I did perceive it as such at the time. I was unable to continue to do so, however, after seeing the follow up behavior of that person in the subsequent several days, while I was feverish and miserable and really suffering it became truly apparent that it was never about trying to help me feel better. It was always, and only, about them. That was a disappointment that shook me more than I expected it to. I am attempting to release that pain through this writing.
Gratitude is a strong emotion, and it’s valid and powerful, but it’s also defamed on a regular basis by well-meaning people in the interest of pursuing “good vibes only.” Attempting to force it does not work and may undermine the purpose of the exercise.
I don’t think it counts as gratitude when it comes to mind as being grateful that something worse isn’t happening. The underlying focus of that “gratitude” is the bad thing, which discredits the purpose of stating the gratitude, because of where it aligns your energy. This form of redirected gratitude that “thankfully things are not worse” gives unnecessary energy to the worse scenario, that you are thankful not to have, but which you might not be focusing on if you were not so intent on declaring gratitude in a time of suffering. That is a time when you could otherwise productively use your energy to be present in the situation and thereby hope to persevere through it.
Don’t think of a white bear. How did that work out for you? Right.
This is what is wrong with the “good vibes only” idea. In order to maintain the “good vibes only” status, you have to be in constant judgement and comparison, ever bringing to mind the very thing you are trying to avoid. That takes a lot of bandwidth, even if it is at a subconscious level. I feel like this creates spuriousness in people claiming to be so purely positive, because they constantly have to assess whether or not a given situation is good vibes only or not in order to reject those which aren’t. If not at a surface level, at a deeper level, this constant assessment and judgement shatters their entire persona, which is based on an unattainable pretense. That incongruity manifests in relationships and creates unnecessary division, the mirror of the forged reality of the individual.
So, I will instead experience life fully, moving through the muck as needed. I can live in integrity this way. It feels more real to allow all the vibes and navigate the experience of life with skill rather than abandon. Take the red pill. Welcome to the real world.
Once upon a time, I used the word soulmate. Back then I used the word #love more freely as well. When I dated someone, it was usually a question of not if but when someone would say “I love you”. It just flowed at some point, and someone would say it, and the other person would say it back, even though one usually was in it more than the other. It wasn’t that big a deal, even though we thought it was.
Now the word love, in terms of romantic context, might as well be wrapped in barbed wire because of how unlikely I am to say it, even when I may feel it. The last person who really heard it from me, organically and truly from the heart with full intent, was 13 years ago. That person still appears in my dreams fairly regularly; he was in them last night. We haven’t spoken in years. I don’t even know where he is now. That season ended. It was there for a purpose greater than he or I. It saddens me that our friendship was collateral damage from that, but I cannot deny the greater good it served.
The thing is, when I really think about it, that wasn’t any more love than anything else could be. What made it love was that we were both willing to call it that.
As we age, everything becomes a function of convenience. If the puzzle piece doesn’t fit exactly, we don’t have time for it. If we disagree about some things, why bother. If it’s not forever, why even play?
What happens through this is that we miss out on loving a lot of people, and we miss out on the true potential and magic that allowing oneself to express those three simple words can offer. There is such a stigma attached to them. People think that there are all sorts of expectations attached to those words, so they would rather not ever say them, rather not ever even allow themselves to think them in association with a romantic partner or some such person of interest. We lie to ourselves and say it’s not that serious as long as we don’t say those words. They will come into our minds, and we brush them aside because of the connotations they imply. We don’t want to have to follow up with action, so we don’t dare say the words.
We are fucking up in doing so. I said what I said.
We all need to stop being such weenies about it, myself included. I say it to my friends all the time, but I will sew my lips closed or chop off my fingers before saying it or writing it to a significant other. “It’s too soon. It can’t be real love, don’t you dare say it.” I tell myself, choking the words away to be eaten up and dissolved inside me, where they die a little more.
Well, you know what? If you don’t ever say it, it won’t ever be real.
May everyone I know who does this be freed from their semantic prison.
Have a good day. 
(Enter Pina)pinarosana, 2023 (a parody, paying homage to the speech in Hamlet Act 3 Scene 1)
To freeze or not to freeze-
That is the question.
Whether 'tis better a run to suffer
The stinging, bitter, frigid temperature
Or to take arms against the icy chill
And, by opposing, treadmill? To move, to breathe-
Indoors- and though we breathe to say we end
The shivers, the numb and frozen hands
That cold gives way to - 'tis a situation
Devoutly to be wished. To move, to breathe-
In warmth, perchance in shorts. Ay, there's the rub,
For in shorts, indoors, on machines,
What miles may come,
When we have shuffled off these city streets,
May not be long.
Traverse the mundane,
Plod through the chores of daily life and work,
Do what needs to be done and what is chosen to do in each moment,
Finally slowing to a dimly lit room, alone, where you reflect and realize
That somewhere, many miles away, there is somebody, also resting in a room alone,
With you.
~pinarosana, 2023
a glance aside
an overcorrection
and just like that
it all ends
off the road
into the unknown
gone in a blink
nobody knows when
what is life
a fragment, a moment
nobody thinks
about when it’s over
until somebody is gone
Rest In Peace, Kim
“inspire in me, the desire in me, to never go home” (from Homesick, by The Cure)
Every night the same.
Will I never sleep again?
Ankle deep in mud.
Shamanic night, a candle flickering while flute and drums are whispering wisdom. Now you walk alone.
But do not be fooled.
You take with you, their strengths.
Emerge from the twos and rise into the three, the five, the seven.
Honor them with that which you allow into your life.
You are their art, now signed, polished, and framed. You are what remains. The end of the line.
Now you can choose. The things that were chosen for you have gone and you will light your own way.
Do not deny yourself the truth that you know that you feel that you are, and that you believe.
These truths are your greatest strengths. Breathe them and resonate them and project around you the circle of support.
Legions of energetic beings conspire to bind that circle and fill it with light. They are your keepers now, the percussive.
The counted and the uncountable, beats within waves spinning a tunnel of sound aflame.
May the one, the center, the cast for stability, rise you above the rocks and the roots where the sacred void sleeps.
Here the countdown begins.
You may seem alone.
You may walk alone.
You may feel alone.
You are not alone.
You are the 23rd Shaman. The 22 have gone before. Ptah has made the way.
the space between the notes 