Walking on wet concrete.

A quick note:

I have been trying to keep with my serial fiction. Not happening. But I've still been writing. I write shorts. More like descriptive fiction. If I think of anything to write in a continuous stream, I'm going to seriously have to plan it out a lot more. Instead of there being a proposed "once a week" setting, I'm setting up an entirely different blog for my short fiction. It's name? "Anecdotes and Adages". The url is www.anecdotesandadages.blogspot.com Speaking of Names, I've also changed the name of this blog to "Dear Abba..." It'll mostly serve the purpose of the letters and conversations to God. The intent of this blog more suits that now, anyways. Sorry for the changes folks, but they are needed.

"The message that sustained me as a child-- that the cruelty we take for granted is not natural-- sustains me to this day. For I know that beneath the fear and the hatred, beneath the urge to kill and destroy, far beneath the scarred shells that protect and define us, people are good. Deep down our needs are simple: apart from food, shelter, and clothing there are the needs to love and be loved, for community, to be open with the world at large and have it be open with us, to affect and to be affected, to understand and to be understood, to hear and be heard, to accept and to be accepted. It is only when we fear that these needs won't be met that we grasp at them, and in grasping, lose any chance we have o...f satisfying them. Love controlled is not love; just as sex demanded is rape and acceptance expected is subservience. Bet if we fear, then demand we must, for to fear these needs will not be met is to fear for our lives as surely as if our lack of love and acceptance were instead the absence of food and water. With these deep needs unsatisfied, we waste away, shrivel, and die from hunger and thirst. We die, but we go on surviving. The search for that which should have been there all along continues, but we can no longer receive it, or even recognize it."

-Derrick Jensen, "A Language Older Than Words"

I have to say that this quote should be one of the few that I memorize, because I find myself referring back to quite frequently. Sometimes, I see bits and pieces of my once-thought-conquered insecurities creep back into my personality. The exhuming of desperation in my actions dealing with people I would like to be friends with, my falling onto a twisted intellectual caste-system with others, and the incessant turning everything on myself. I thought i had spent a significant time unraveling that profile.

I cannot say that I haven't changed at all, however. Nowadays, I'm more forgiving of myself. I keep more things to myself, simply because I don't feel the need to broadcast with my coworkers [the reason, then, that I write this blog is because I still wish to be honest with the world at large and have it be honest with me. Those of you who stumble onto this site can learn about me, but it is of your own volition.] If anything, I try harder to befriend those of higher intellect in my classes than to outdo them. When i feel like I can't do something, I do something physical. It jolts me out of my depressive state, and I didn't fully understand it until now-- When my legs are moving, and my heart is working, and my lungs are breathing, it reminds me of my own power. When I'm diving or running, my body can fully submit to my mind, and it takes my problems, and sizes them up for what they are: much smaller than they appear.

Now I have to state that this sudden reflection has been brought about in light of recent events. I am considering joining the school paper. Nothing definite yet, but I'm working on an article for them, and when I was survey some on site work, I ran into this guy. We hit it off. Turns out tat he was gay, and very interested in me, and to be fair, I had an inkling that he was no ordinary fellow [we had become the center of attention when he asked the pastor a controversial question and I provided evidence] and afterward, he asked me if I would be interested in going out. I said yes.

And in the days that followed, he has more or less recanted. He's told me that he had just gotten out of a relationship and wasn't ready for another, but still wanted to be friends, and then he just stopped returning my calls. In that time, I felt my consciousness constantly battering against myself, suggesting all sorts of things to get in touch with him. I was unhappy, and when I knew better than to feel so.

I know what a lot of people are saying; yes, it was only a day that we met, and only a few hours when we actually a few hours when we hung out. I suppose that the reason I am so torn up about this was the chance at a real relationship. Being a black, gay man isn't the most attractive feature in our society. Most of my meeting people who are actually interested in me are online, and they either don't take care of themselves, are very shallow, or are just not available. The possibility of meeting someone who was legitimately interested in me, asks me out, and isn't just concerned about the next party, or the next bed bounce, or the what they wore, or other superficialities seemed like a fairytale come true.

And so I grasped and grasped and grasped, and probably pushed him away.

I know what I felt wasn't love, not of him, anyway. If anything, I'm in love with intimacy. I'm in love with whispers and sunrises and tea in the morning while reading the paper. I'm in love with the stability of strong arms and the power of a strong chest, but the openness of a straight stare. I'm in love with falling asleep with someone to cling to, and hair to twist and fondle. I'm in love with silence being comfortable, with breathing in sync, with hours going by and the only things we do are for each other.

I don't fear death. I fear loss, loneliness, rejection, deception, humiliation, and the pain these things cause, but I don't fear death. God, help me lay these fears to rest.

That is what I am afraid