See the Contrast…?

I often find myself struggling. Actually, who the hell am I bullshitting. I am constantly struggling.

I was born creative, an artist – so yes, I am fucking emotional and extremely sensitive. I am also a very grounded Taurus, so I’m not the erratic or dramatic types. I don’t cry for nothing, am ridiculously understanding and tolerant and patient. To the point where it drives me mad. See the contrast?

I love being a bull for the insane strength that it’s given me – emotionally and mentally. But when it comes to heart matters, I’m the biggest loser there is. See the contrast?

I feel so deeply and connect so quickly with people – even strangers. I am moved and touched and hurt and offended. I take everything too personally. I take things to heart. I feel enough pain of my own, I don’t know why I need feel other people’s pain! I can’t separate myself from them. See the contrast?

I love my country and it’s people as much as I have no faith in them – they make my otherwise positive outlook on life, rather grim and negative. See the contrast?

I am patient but I want it now.

I am surrounded by people but lonely.

I am constantly grateful but somehow still unhappy.

Something’s always missing. And I’m running out of ideas. How do I fill the hole? Does it ever get filled?

I wish I was emotionally cold and dead. No feelings. No love. Just a ‘whatever’ attitude. I want not to feel. I want not to give a fuck. But I can’t, because I do feel, I do care and I do give a fuck about everything and everyone, all the time. See the contrast?

Dec, 2016.

Your Expectations…

I don’t talk much,
Not about the past anymore,
Not about how X hurt me, or that I went through Y,
I don’t speak of all the pain, struggle, the number of times I have wanted to end my life, end it all for good,
But that doesn’t mean I’m over it,
That doesn’t mean I don’t feel,
That doesn’t mean I don’t know your pain,
That doesn’t mean anything.
Stop your mind from jumping to conclusions,
Stop your ego from judging me.
My story is mine, I will share it if I need to,
And I’d only need to, to help lighten your load.
I don’t need it to hold grudges or blame,
To whine or stay stuck in a moment long gone.
I don’t need to prove the tons of things I’ve gone through,
I don’t need your sympathy,
I won’t explain myself for your egos satisfaction.
Free me from your expectations,
Because I won’t, I absolutely won’t live up to them.
– Ramona Arena, 3rd September, 2018.

Open Up

Rules are meant to be rewritten

Theories are meant to be challenged

Conclusions are meant to be incomplete

Cuz the finite ain’t finite

And things ain’t what they seem.

 

Questions aren’t meant to be answered

Discovery is meant to be on-going

Seeking is to be an eternal quest

Cuz the finite ain’t finite

And we manifest that of which we dream.

 

It’s round, it’s square,

It’s here, but it’s also there

The dress is blue and the dress is green

Screw your illusions, I see the real deal

But the finite ain’t finite

You’re beyond all you staunchly believe.

 

Yeah the finite ain’t finite

Look beyond all that you perceive.

 

– Ramona Arena 2016.

Nutcracker

My nutcracker

With beautiful curls of gold

A stubble that moulds you into an old mountain man

Or the lack of which turns you into a boy of innocent days

Where you hid among the bushes for hours

Then tried so hard, to still be found,

By being the perfect A, the non rebel, the good one.

No drugs. No tattoos.

But you still carry demons and scars

That you won’t let heal

That with 2 golden gramaphones

And a magical smile

You ignore and conceal.

Eyes-

So dense

Like the forests you wrote of, in the midst of a monsoon

As clear as the ice cold streams

That flow between surfaces of seemingly frigid-white.

You’ve fooled the world

What a great job you’ve done

You’ve even convinced yourself

That you can live without the sun.

I don’t need glasses

For I see you with what can’t be seen

And you know this can’t go on much longer

You’ll be back home soon, to what you know deep within is real.

-Ramona Arena 2016.

 

 

Succumb

Why is it so hard for me
To break through these walls of denial.
Why can’t I see they are only made of paper,
Not steel.

Why does it seem impossible for me
To allow myself just a tear?
Must I always resort to intoxication
To let loose or a find a momentary escape?

Why do I have to hide behind words
And filters that conceal my lines,
The story hasn’t even begun to be told,
But the end is clearly in sight.

If only I could shake the truth I know, out of me
Like the falling leaves of October.
Would it be so thoroughly shattering
To accept that I still miss you?

Could the vulnerability reveal a comforting shadow?
Could the weakness reduce me to a baggage tag that reads ‘fragile’?
Either way, this debate of submission,
Is a sweet pain I’ve grown to love.

It’s the oxygen in my lungs
That keeps me alive,
In the same way,
That it allows me to disintegrate until mortality claims my soul.

-Ramona Arena 2014.