--
The cure for the disease of discontent is to allow yourself to get smacked squarely upside your head with the truth that you made a choice to be discontent.
This only works if you believe that everything is a choice and that you are the maker and the creator of your demise and your delight, that your existence on this planet is the canvas and you, o sentient one, are the artist. The artiste!
This does not work if you are expressly attached to your role as unsuspecting victim of life's travails and triumphs. You, a finely dressed marionette, and something outside of you, Bob Baker.
This works if the cure brings you even the tiniest bit of hope.
This does not work if it sounds like the worst news that you could possibly hear.
I realized I was suffering from the disease of discontent about halfway through its occupation in my being. As diseases go, discontent nibbled at me from within until I noticed it had devoured much of my light. A black hole grasping at the nearest stars to extinguish their glow, too, I tired of the dark at the same time that I blamed others for my lot and secretly wished them the worst. But there is never anyone or anything else to blame! This is life's lesson I learn in cycles and rhythms, for better and worse, until probably after death do us part.
All it took was a simple text, nine words to be exact, to remind me in a bigger way than ever that my thoughts and reactions were under my control. I could keep talking and complaining and pretending that I just couldn't help any of it or stop myself, or I could be the conscious observer, the witness, impartial to all of my ups and downs and highs and lows and heres and theres and everywheres and nowheres. I could choose to be an asshole, or I could stop being an asshole. I no longer wanted to be an asshole. It was as complicated and as simple as that, and to sound dramatic but to be totally real, everything has changed.
I don't know what your nine-worded text will be, but I wish for it to come to you, if that's what you choose to wish for yourself.
--
Above, a rendering of the vision I had in therapy as nebulously outlined below:
a process
a poem
a passing of time
a dawning
a deluge
disjointed rhymes
and it begins with
the languor of midday, a consequence of summer
the audacity of the world continuing to spin
(doesn't she know what's happened, what's happening
over here and over there
and to him and to them
all of them)
mistrust breeds
the need
to protect
that which needs no protection
because the rule of divinity is
"i am safe
and all is well
always"
even with a gun to my head
or death at my doorstep
or a lifetime of bad habits running down the street with flashlights and face masks at the height of the night
discontent features only itself in the movie of the mind
anyway
it's been
a few weeks since
i decided
or it was decided for me
to drop
the word from my soul's dictionary
it showed up in many ways
over many days
judgment
a glance in the mirror
an unkind word
all words
passing through none of these three gates--
is it kind?
is it true?
is it necessary?
until the one time.
and poof!
like that,
it expired.
free of discontent
all windows opened to welcome the common cold,
an easy fix
it doesn't have to be good
this doesn't have to be good
because it's an exercise for life and because
beauty is in the eye of the beholder
(another rule of the divine)
i don't have to be a good
[friend]
to you
if it means i'm not being a good friend
to me
(another lesson for another rhyme)
it's not goodbye
it's i'll love you
from over here
where only real love is real
and all of my thoughts can pass through the three gates
inner peace never speaks
everything else is noise
--
as always, thank you for sharing your time, your space, and your words, too--
<3 brookie
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