Trust, & The Little Icky Man

Fear is a little, wirey, green man with chattering teeth and eyes wide. Anxiety bleeds them. Fear hides in the corners of our houses, just creeping out when we're alone with our own heads. He's so strong he's got his own form. And you can catch a glimpse in the corner of your eye as a shadow moves across the room.

I still find him once in awhile, trying to pick a fight with me and lick the meat from my brain. Fear is the reason for the death inside of us; the breakdown of communication and the apathy that starts to grow like mold on our hearts, locking us down into a hole of heavy mud. Scared of each other. Scared of ourselves. Watching our own convictions disappear into the quicksand. The world is sinking.

Art becomes dirtied up with tacky trinkets, fetching money that's no longer money. Men close their doors in distrust, and women throw theirs right off the rooftops along with declarations of angst. Another child runs away to a nearby barn to play with matches, and a life is lost in the confusion. Weapons take aim from across the sea, while the lonely lady next door adopts a sea otter.

Why bother to keep getting up every morning, fighting to prove the heart is real? Why keep stretching those voice box chords like a delicate web about to break, striving to mimic the primitive, sweet song of the indigo bunting? Because it just has to be. While the darkness keeps falling down like acid rain; while the trash keeps washing up against our doors, that song is the one thing to hold onto every morning. So wipe the tears away that Fear knocked around your face, and shower off that sticky mess of a nightmare that keeps trying to follow you to the door.

Keep getting up, resetting that mind clock and breathing the air; whether it's cold or hot, smoky or wet. Listen to a song. Look up at the sky. Music and skies live forever, and they don't smother your soul. Now let me tell you the story of Trust.

Trust can be built for two reasons. One of those reasons lives saturated in self-absorption and deceit. It's meaningless and works to manipulate into a state of obligation. The other is more sacred. When someone genuinely trusts, guards are let down and an innocence seems to wash over a person. Faces become pure light, and it's beautiful. Nothing should cause a blight on something so chaste. Mangling up trust is the reason our world is sinking into a thick, dark hell.

Whatever happened to that safe space of pleasure felt when someone we admire is simply happy? Why does it have to get all stained and greasy from some kind of hateful need to take? It's that old creepy green Fear slipping in again, that's why. Planting slimy seeds in the fields of our minds, making us believe we have to own a person's innocence in order to feel complete. Absolute disgust.

I choose to be a garden. Go ahead and lock up that secret in a tin box, and bury it in my body. I'll sleep with it and grow roots and flowered vines over it so thick they'll have to be burned away to get to the box. And if I burn, I die.

And this is the way souls are cherished and held sacred for an eternity. With no need to own, tell, control or kill. When obsession is no more, and desire becomes a more open & free kind of love. One that can allow that soul to smile, play, walk away, maybe to come back around for a dance once in awhile under the moonlight. We don't build trust just to cut off the head of the innocent. I'd rather go to my grave than live in a world that black.

Before you go to sleep, smear a line of blood by the door to keep Fear from crossing. Light a candle and let the song of the indigo bird lay your eyes down. Wait in dreams for morning, when the sun will warm the sky and your heart might find time to breathe again.