The Filtered Life
In the age of photography studios at our fingertips, life becomes a façade. What we see isn’t always reality. Life is photoshopped. We see everyone and everything through a filtered screen. All of life’s little blemishes are smoothed out. Exposure is added to things that need not be exposed! Contrast runs rampant when we compare our lives to everyone else and feel we don’t measure up. After all, we aren’t traveling the world as a photographer and getting thousands of followers on Instagram. Bloggers are overexposed, spouting off their opinions as facts. Algorithms highlight what the powers that be deem important and shadow what they wish to suppress. So many filters are put on life that it is hard to remember what the original actually looks like.
Let’s take a minute and try to locate the original. A snapshot of the true you, untouched by the filtered glass of social media. What do you think about yourself? Is your worth measured on how many followers you have? How many likes you get? How many people agree with your politically? Do you get buried under the avalanche of tweets, snaps, Tik Toks, Blogs, Vlogs and all the noise? Have you been too busy scrolling and reacting instead of living? What have you discovered about life lately outside of the computer screen?
There was a movie several years ago that fashioned the infamous line, “You complete me.” All women swooned at the line delivered by the handsome Tom Cruise. I didn’t. The line repulsed me. If anyone walked up to me and said, “You complete me.” I would run as fast as I could in the other direction. Why? Because I do not need someone to complete me, neither do I want to complete someone. If I must complete you, it means you are only half a person and if you need to complete me, then I am not a whole. I’ve got an idea. Why not be an entire person so when you meet that special someone it’s two whole people walking side by side in life.
So how do you become a whole person? Start by pulling away from the siren’s entangling call of social media. Once you do, your senses will grow sharper and you will notice new things about life, the real world surrounding you.. Life will seem much more natural, simple and easy. We spend so much time self-deprecating and criticizing ourselves with the filtered pictures of others and dare say such horrible things about ourselves such as, I hate my nose. I hate my chin. I hate my legs. I hate my hair. I hate my eyes. I wish my lips were puffier. I wish my hair were thicker. I wish my hair were straight, I wish my hair were curly. I wish I had longer eyelashes. I wish my eyes were green.
We also compare our life with the filtered statuses we read and spend our energies wishing things were different. I wish I was somewhere having fun. I wish I had a husband like that. I wish I had more friends. I wish I was in the cool group. I wish I were talented. I wish I had been invited to that. I wish I were successful. I wish I were more popular. I wish my story got more views. I wish I had a million followers, and on and on it goes. We criticize our lot in life and do not allow ourselves to measure up.
First of all, realize that everyone out there is living their life behind a filter that makes them look better. Things are not always as they appear. People pay for followers and likes. I remember going on a hike once. The friends I was hiking with were miserable. It was a hot day. Everyone was tired and thirsty, and no one was talking. When we reached the top of the mountain everyone pulled out their phone and started snapping selfies and groupies. The pictures told a story of an amazing hike full of adventure and camaraderie that never happened.
Before you hate on your life or self-deprecate about those short chubby legs of yours, be thankful they have taken you everywhere you want to go. Your legs take you to the coffee shop. They help you ride a bike and climb up stairs and ladders and mountains and hike beautiful trails. They propel you across the swimming pool. They enable you to dance a jig at your best friend’s wedding. They take you on adventures, walk you right up beside that hottie and run like heck to get you out of a difficult situation. At the end of the day, you and your faithful legs crawl into bed and relax. Realize those two legs are your buddies. They are incredible. Thank them for doing life with you. Thank your eyes for showing you the world. Thank your ears for allowing you to listen to your favorite music and hear the voices of those you love. Thank your lips for providing the tunnel for your favorite beverages to enter your mouth. Fall in love with every part you. See yourself as adorable and loveable and fun to hang out with and you will always have a best friend. Don’t trick yourself into thinking you need a shoulder to cry on and someone to lean on. It’s good to have friends and family that can be there for you but learn to rely on yourself. You do not need to be completed by a job, a career, a boyfriend, a spouse, a child, a best friend. Those things are wonderful and should be celebrated but they should never complete you.
Discover that you are good company and can encourage yourself when needing a pick me up. You are more powerful than you know. The soul of the world exists inside you. You are a complete and whole person. You are an original. There is nothing more freeing than stripping of the filters and being you!
Escape
At Uni... I ocassionally frequent the Lagoon front. It's the most silent place in the entire school. From a distance you'll see the Third Mainland Bridge. So many cars going and coming. I could get lost watching them.
At the bank we have this wall that runs across the school boundary. A small gate of some sort to keep the dirt that as traveled fom God knows where from settling on the school property.
I sit somewhere in the garden and absorb nature all around. There are so many bats hibernating on the Mango tree in the garden. There are crab holes everywhere. Those guys are creepy and at the same time adorable. They're always vigilant. Any slight provocation, into the hole they go.
Palm trees, Mango trees, trees that I do not know their names, creepy Crabs, hibernating Bats, Third Mainland Bridge and most especially me. Altogether in a painting sounds like a work of art. But, something is missing. I mean how else will it make sense without the Sunset. The clouds and the lagoon folds upon each other like the folded joints of a book with a hardcover.
You're the Sun in this painting. With you at the centre of the Canvas.
It all makes sense.
coming of age
i.
growing up is like losing a game of catch with your body: sinews slipping from their sockets like rain from the rooftops, epidermis crackling softly like glacier ice as it melts. at high tide, the larynx sinks in ambivalence as you realize your skin is not yours anymore.
i am nothing but wrists and elbows hung out to dry. wrinkled silk clothespinned on the galaxies, smoldering ashes without the memory of a fire to burn for. the void between black and white leaves a world painted in gray; where light becomes the absence of shadows. where light becomes absence.
ii.
tarmac sears the rubber of your tennis shoes as rusted cars honk their salutes. momentum feels numb on your legs as the throng of sweating bodies shuffles past afternoon sun, eager for a breeze that is more of your neighbor’s breathless gasps than august gusts. schoolkids kick dried grass into the air and don’t stop to watch it fall to the ground again. the fear of never being able to touch the clouds pushes you ahead of the rest, and the call of the timer barely registers until you turn around and realize there is no one behind you.
the ocean is loud. louder than all the cities you can name on your fingers. nature watches as you rediscover the sounds humans built on top of: waves crashing into foam as they reach sand, rocks disappearing under the tides to return as glass softer than the palm of a hand, pebbles swimming as the water reaches to take them home. the sunset is singing its last breaths, and for the first time, you feel like you can live. rosy fingers tuck the last pieces of dawn in your pocket, and you leave with footsteps in the sand.
you don’t turn around to notice the shadow on the horizon has your name.
iii.
we are getting ready for the dance and i pretend i do not know how ethereal you look with string lights in your hair. you brush feathers onto my cheekbones and the girl sitting in front of the vanity has the same smile as my mother.
before i know it, the wand is in my hands and we are performing a magic trick: making ugly beautiful. but there is nothing to change in your daisy face, with the rainforest eyes that make me want to sing the notes to a song i don’t know. hair like burnished amber has already burnt itself into the back of my mind. you say you want to be special, just for tonight. and so i sweep your eyes with maple eyeshadow until the day we are in full bloom.
iv.
we drank in the sun that cream-soda summer. wishing away the arguments upstairs with a dime in the jukebox. one of us stayed behind when those boys walked up to the table; cedar cologne and borrowed leather don’t mix well with milkshakes and fries. one of us told the other to call their parents while they hiked to the cabin. (hands like hot chocolate scald your body in all the wrong places. you lick them off, trembling, with burnt plastic straws.)
two of us jumped into that cream-soda summer. one of us swam out.
v.
i am fifteen and outgrowing all the words i learned to say. the keys to the camry are jingling in my hand. just yesterday we were graduating from eighth grade, carpooling in your mother’s suv. now we are in the driver’s seat, all too eager to make our way around a world that will not remember our names.
last october we pretended to be grown-up and sipped apple cider like champagne at homecoming. homecoming. what does that mean to two souls searching for a place they’ve never known? we are nothing but wrists and elbows, names etched in the shadow on the horizon. and yet we are giggling in maple eyeshadow, intoxicated with cream-soda summers that take and take and take.
but i will keep giving and giving and giving even if our parallel lines never meet. we will always be unconditional. and i dream of the cosmos shattering softly into stained glass, the chatter of reeds on a damp july night. just to stay by your side as we watch the world fall would be enough. it would be enough.
Soul Stirrings
Stir my soul and mix me up
I’m made of many things
writings on sidewalks
hidden beliefs in my eye
cups of life to savor
Stir my soul and mix me up
made of endings, closed to others
heartbeats lined up in a row
fire without need of matches
sensual breath on naked skin
Stir my soul and mix me up
parts of scars that don’t heal
twigs cut free from my beginning
fragrance of earth, molded into clay
frayed strings of multi-colored thoughts
Stir my soul and mix me up
composed of music inside my spine
slamming doors and exits from life
flashing lights warning keep away
reflections that lie, bent masks of truth
Stir my soul and mix me up
unused time waiting to be filled
blank slate waiting for emotion
patched pieces and worn thread
exposing life holding me together
Stir my soul and mix me up
fill my thirsty soul and rampant dreams
for I’m made in the shape of a bowl
waiting to be filled with uplifting words
soaking my skin, setting past free.
Forgotten
I will soon be traveling far away,
To a strange and distant shore,
Far across the rolling seas,
To be gone for evermore,
Could it be this journey,
Filled with hopes and fears,
Could ever be concluded,
Without its share of tears?
This one last life earned trip I take,
As take it you know I must,
For this shell that I have traveling in,
Must soon return to dust,
If I am remembered in any way,
Please let it be for this,
The poems that I write these days,
Will not go amiss,
Will I be forgotten,
As many have before,
This question will be answered,
When I reach that distant shore.
(c) BAM
dead inside
Emotionally discharged
Carved out heart
Dead inside
Numb to the core
Hored out
Of feeling
Running on empty
Words useless
Hope cracking
Fingers slipping
On the trigger
Homeless eyes
Rib cage
Cracked
And
Filled
With
Pain
Skeleton
Bone
Body
Puking insantiy
Hair wild
Lost
And
Trapped
In
Appearance
Running out of time
Voices
Submerging
Under
The
Ground
Of
My
Tears
3 strikes
Your
Out
Says
The
Devil
Go ahead pull the trigger
Fiddle with your imagination
Your going to get your degree
In crazyiness
You tiptoeing of the cliff
the angels say they will catch you
Effects of an Affect
Your embrace is a bubble bath at the perfect temperature, and, when the surface splits, the crystal blue water looks like a natural spring from my childhood. When you share your mind, I am wrapped in white cashmere. Swaddled gently around me are your words dancing with your intellect. Your hands are heated basalt stones. They are flat, smooth, and healing against my knotted flesh. Your eyes are the furthest point of an ocean by sight: they are sunset against the horizon, and your depth appears endless and erotically haunting. I see a rainbow aura pulsing when your heart is joyful. The frequency of you plays strings with a staccato rhythm. And my pulse quickens when you are near: I get high from the oxygen birthed in my blood as it rushes through my body --nourishing every cell.
Love.
