Everything is a decision, “I can’t” is fathomable. I don’t want to be honest. I don’t want to, I’m afraid to, I do not want to make that sacrifice.
That is what is so clear to me now- I do not want to make certain sacrifices. I make cheap ones that only hurt once they are compounded and it is known the true cost. A penny, a nickel, a dime, a bus ride into the city, sleeping on a friend's couch with the flavor of tequila still abiding on the tongue. A morning walk out of North Hollywood to the purple train and then the blue and Gold. 2 dollar fare multiplied by the Lyft ride to home or to a party or to see someone you haven’t quite decided on. I’m growing up against my will.
I’ll do it tomorrow, tomorrow’s tomorrow may as well be I’ll never do it. I’ll do it when it hurts most to do it when I’m forced to by my discomfort. Do I sacrifice tomorrow for today or today for tomorrow or will I be seduced by Friday or my own thoughts of thoughts, the thoughts of others, their ideas of right and wrong burrowing into me and eating away at me. To be convinced is a sacrifice to not is also, staying still is a practice run of death but it also a return to oneself, or to myself.
Myself, saying myself as an exhale. M y s e l f, where do I find her if not in sacrifice? If not in the pieces that are cut away by the experience, the loss of baby fat one may say, the suppleness of inexperience the integration of all those stories, the forewarnings at the feet of my grandmothers which bring a certain radiance to myself. She greased my scalp with wisdom, braided pieces of herself into me, and told me how to live in a way I didn’t get bruised. The roots though, tended by endurance, principle, deception, and sometimes bondage. That strange history twisted into me turned over and over and over. The grappling from exile can I buy back my freedom by getting bruised? Or is the bruising a return to bondage?
