Living with Joy & Trauma
in a world both ugly and beautiful…
Words likely won’t do it, I am sure I can’t explain it, and I am sure you already know what I wish I could say. There are moments in my life, I found perfection. The joy of a simple moment. A cup of tea, a good book, a cozy blanket, and a pet at your feet. The sun on your back while weeding the garden. The breeze that gently lifts your hair on the back of your neck and whispers of memories lost to time.
Moments when the sunrise or sunset was too gorgeous, and I cried at the lavishness of being alive. Feeling foolish, too emotional, I reigned it in. I keep the weeping about beauty inside, my chest twists as I admit things too pretty to be true.
A new mother and her baby, laughing at each other, no one else in the world but them
The siren song of whales to each other, fathoms deep in the unknown abyss
Bumble bees and pollen, spreading the sex of flowers across the earth
Red raspberries, the magic of tastebuds and brain chemistry too scientific to explain the mathematical odds of such a perfect union
I have cried for joy, witnessing these small things, these massive moments have brought me to my knees in gratitude.
I sit here writing this with music loudly pounding rhythms of perfect memories, and memories I try to bury under drugs and trauma.
Which leads me to the tragic existence of humanity. The opposite of beauty has to exist, in the balance of life there must be death.
But does it have to be so violent? So cruel?
Our very existence is traumatic. The brown shirts, the militarization of life, the absence of gratitude, the loss of love, the wickedness of the dark side taking over like some Sith villain come true.
How can this many people choose the dark side? The videos of violence. The evidence of hatred. The disease of greed. The stain of the absence of empathy. These people are empty, there are only holes left in their chests, in their skulls, sickly green dust floating around where compassion was supposed to exist. Taking up the space that used to contain love, the green vomit is contagious.
But so is love. How can I take one of those men, those men marching in military green costumes, pretending they are better than the rest of us, how can I take him and show him?
Would it be like that movie the men who stare at goats, and I would have to dose them all with psychedelics - to remove the veil and allow them to see past their hatred?
I am at a loss, I find it hard to breathe, hard to sleep, hard to rest. I can see the joy of living, I can hold it in both hands and squeeze tightly, never letting go, but the sickly green gas rising from the piles of vomit, is contaminating everything it touches.
Having understood the reason for being, lodged deep in a cavern of psychedelic revelation, I know it is easy to be kind. It is easy to show love, and patience. It is easy to be a good person.
And the tears I cry when watching Nazis march the streets of the United States in the year 2026, rips me to shreds. I feel too much as it is, I saw beyond the veil myself and I will never unsee the beauty that could be.
At any given moment - on any day since this regime took hold - I could cry tears that wrack my entire body, the convulsions of pure and utter sadness, sadder than any lover ever made me. Sadder than any pet dying ever made me.
Because right now - everything we hold dear is being abused, trashed, attacked, slandered, bloodied. And no one stops them… No one… stops them?
The wounds must be deep, and dark, sharp, and savage, for those that support ICE, and those that are ICE. Are those humans broken beyond repair? Can they even be called human when they act so inhumane? Could they be retrained, relearn compassion? This is a development during our toddler years, the most aggressive years in a human life. Are these men just toddlers? Never matured past that?
If we know the gene for distaste of cilantro, I would like to know the gene for racism and pedophilia. Because it feels like some white men must have it…
I digress.
The sadness I feel for all this loss, all this pain, shame, torture, death, rape, mutilation, world war three is officially beginning, it feels too big, too massive, too heavy, too awful to be happening.
I will wake up soon, I know it, this has been one long nightmare and I am in a coma, someday to wake. Right?
Because there is no way on earth that the United States of America would allow all that is occurring. Never.
and yet…
What the fucking fuck is going on and why isn’t anyone doing anything about it?
Life can be so simple and so lovely, it doesn’t have to be so hurtful and ugly. Why do they choose to suffer, and make others suffer with them?
An empty bean can, pried open by a pocket knife. Found in an alley, the trail of humanity’s hunger is evidenced by discarded bean cans…
