My face heats when I reread what I have written.

It is clunky and unedited. It is raw and full of typos. It is not well structured or put together. It is not the way I have been taught to do things. It is rebellion.

I go down again. To the core, past the anger and the comparisons and the wanting to be someone. Down deeper past the hatred and past the programming and past the mindless chatter. Down deeper to the core.

Here, I find death again. I see her on your face and yours and yours. I see her become your body and your bones and your blood. I see death within you for I feel death within myself. As a home, a sanctuary, away from all the noise, a bright place past all fo the shadows.

Sometimes writers or poets seem to conjure up what we need; they create the pathways into our hearts that get us to touch, sense, notice, to live with greater enthusiasm and wit. To fall in love with the very thing that life gives to us: itself. Some writers make us cry and laugh and scream, filling our bodies with that delicious golden orange light that makes us make babies. Some writers inspire that life to course through us, to live and reach all the parts of us, all of the lost or untapped potential. Some writers make us live in this world.

I am not that, maybe I am and do not know it, but I feel as though I am not that.

I write out of necessity, as I know many others do. I tap the core, the cold or hot or whatever feeling core. It is bright. It is always bright, but it is reminiscent of death. It is the only solace I find in this world of chaos and magic. This world of suffering and joy. This world of music and dance and hatred and war. This world of all things. This world of all things.

I know that I need to live in the light more. I have been told it. To stop fighting against the guidance that’s around me. To stop venturing so dark and so deep. It frightens people. They want me to stay on the surface, they want me to dance and play in the light. They want me to be like them. I sometimes want to be like them too. Because I don’t always want to be alone.

But oftentimes, I don’t want to be like others that want me to be something other than me. It’s tiring to try and fit my head into a box and always ask for a way out. It’s draining to try and fight against the things that do not harm me if I let them be. The ghouls and the ghosts. I pass by them and I let them exist. I let them wander the halls as I move around my space. It’s a different thing from allowing the injustices of the living to occur, that is a whole different story, because there are times where we do need to stand up and fight back when injustice is occurring, but in the realms of spirit, in the realms of death and the dying, why can’t we just let it be?

If this is where I find the most peace, why can’t I allow myself to be here, and come back up to the surface from time to time.

Maybe I am writing from a space of a broken heart, a key,  writing from apathy and a desire to dissolve back into the abyss. Maybe I haven’t given it my all, my best shot, to rise, rise, rise to the moment. To clear and cleanse my house so no rogue spirits may be there. Maybe I need to do more, or maybe I do not. I know that I am not hurting anyone, so they do not hurt me. I walk in peace beside them, right relation with the earth, and I keep to myself. Nothing is allowed to take over me, because I know the light of my heart and this is undeniable. I have teams of spirits in these realms that help me and keep me safe and step up if any demon or monster is trying to fuck with me, but generally, I stay in my lane and they stay in theirs. It’s different from when one is attached to another person and is impairing their ways of living, then I help and intervene and send that spirit back to the light, but beyond that, why must we try and get rid of those who are simply existing and not causing any harm?

Yes, there are many beings that just want to feast and feel they can only get that from the light within the living, and boundaries are needed against these beings, but why build walls against those who cause no harm? When I stay in my world and they stay in theirs, and yes, they overlap because we cohabitate this world, but why must we try and get rid of them all, cleanse the earth of the dark? It feels like another colonizer’s story just within the realm of spirits. It feels wrong, it feels unjust.

We know that we can live in peace with one another, why can’t we just simply trust this?

Maybe we simply are the change, allowing things to be as they are. The dead to be dead and the living to be living, and people like me to help be the bridges that cross between the worlds of the two. It’s simple, or it could be complex. It’s generally pretty chill though.

What I feel is a responsibility, and a purpose with this gift.

I also feel a tiredness and a desire to sleep.

Everyone seems to know so much about living, yet few seem to know much about death. I know the spaces in between. I know what it’s like to live within both. And to be frank, oftentimes it breaks my tender heart.

I’m strong though, I keep reminding myself. Not faint of heart though I feel so much. Powerful and wise and intuitive and strong. Capable. I build myself up with the words that keep me in place. I am not alone in this, I have spirits of all love that support me and guide me through everything, I have friends and family that love me and that I love. I have food to eat and a bed to sleep in and I can see and I can listen to music and I can dance. For that I am the luckiest of all.

Death will one day become us, each and every one of us. And that is a gift. Until then I guess I will try my hand at living. And being in the world with all those who know how to do it so damn well.

Until I see you again, I love you. You are so powerful and strong, and don’t ever give up.