The Constricted Soul

“I felt myself melting into the shadows like the negative of a person i’d never seen before in my life.”

Sylvia Plath

I cried over spilled milk once.

I really don’t like milk, and I was being forced to drink it.

So I cried great big tears of joy over spilled milk.

I didn’t ask to come to this world, but here I am, and I don’t fit. I wish I could choose a world to be in just as my parents chose to have me. But I had no say and I still have no say, so I’m stuck, in a world that I don’t belong in. I want to remember what it was like before I was born. Did I have thoughts? Was it as peaceful as I imagine it to have been? Why was my soul selected to be presented to a world where I can only live as a pariah? There is one of every kind in this world; it must have simply needed an alien.

“All trials are trials for one’s life, just as all sentences are sentences of death, and three times I have been tried. The first time I left the box to be arrested, the second time to be led back to the house of detention, and the third time to pass into prison for two years. Society as we have constituted it, will have no place for me, has none to offer; but Nature, whose sweet rains fall on just and unjust alike, will have clefts in the rocks where I may hide, and secret valleys in whose silence I may weep undisturbed. She will hang with stars so that I may walk abroad in the darkness without stumbling, and send the wind over my footprints so that none may track me to my hurt: she will cleanse me in great waters, and with bitter herbs make me whole.”

Oscar Wilde

“In order to be unhappy, you have to first believe in happiness.”

Jean Barbe

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Robert Frost

“Dissociation allows people to respond to conflicting aspects of life as if they were not related. Through the mechanism of dissociation, divisions within society are reproduced within the human mind. Lack of control over work (called alienation) results in psychological dissociation from the work process. People feel disconnected from their labor, from themselves, from each other, and from the world. While dissociation provides temporary comfort, it allows oppression, exploitation, and inequality to continue. Dissociation in the face of injustice is mistakenly perceived as a lack of caring instead of what it really is — a psychological defense against the inability to turn caring into action.”

Susan Rosenthal

“I got into television because I hated it so. And I thought there was some way of using this fabulous instrument to nurture those who would watch and listen.”

Fred McFeely Rogers (1928 – 2003)

‘When?’ said the moon to the stars in the sky
‘Soon’ said the wind that followed them all

‘Who?’ said the cloud that started to cry
‘Me’ said the rider as dry as a bone

‘How?’ said the sun that melted the ground
and ‘Why?’ said the river that refused to run

and ‘Where?’ said the thunder without a sound
‘Here’ said the rider and took up his gun

‘No’ said the stars to the moon in the sky
‘No’ said the trees that started to moan

‘No’ said the dust that blunted its eyes
‘Yes’ said the rider as white as a bone

‘No’ said the moon that rose from his sleep
‘No’ said the cry of the dying sun

‘No’ said the planet as it started to weep
‘Yes’ said the rider and laid down his gun

Nick Cave

For a while we lived with people,
but we saw no sign in them of the faithfulness we wanted.
It’s better to hide completely within,
as water hides in metal, as fire hides in rock.

Jalāl ad-Dīn Rumi