Let me Break it Down for You: Penny for your Personhood?

“Who is she?” They say. "Who is that rainbow of gushing smiles and lustrous beauty? Who is that glowing stream of golden aura who leaves a trail of wistful wonder as she dances by?"

“I wish that was me.”

…

Broken. Empty. “Help me”, she cries, but no one can hear. Something was stolen from her you see; something that would leave her vulnerable to the great arms of Abyss and aching for survival. She is a golden shell, beautiful to be sure, yet scooped out from the inside. When she moves, she feels she is of the undead, though no one seems to notice. They mistake her graceful movement for a reflection of her inner bliss, when really it is a reflection of her passive will as she allows herself to be carried by the gentle breeze that surrounds her. She hides so well behind a beaming smile with glistening pearly whites that appear to dazzle her neighbors into equally blinding eruptions of upturned lips, so that nobody ever really sees. Never really seen, and never really heard. But who is this girl? A fading photograph of who she once was, she cannot identify a single feeling; she has been robbed of her voice. She had met someone with whom she thought she was sharing her soul, but he was a thief in the guise of a lover, a foe with the face of a friend. He swooped in, like a hero she thought, until just as swiftly, he swooped back out like a falcon clutching his bounty. He had stolen a part of her essence, her identity; he had stolen her voice. Her voice, not just for the outside world to hear, but her inner voice too. Her voice of reason, of morality, the voice she used to calm herself or to learn from her mistakes or to decipher complex situations. And now she knew nought, but a bellowing silence moaning inside of her.

It is no longer apt to describe her essence, for how can the observer know what a self-defining thing is if that self-defining thing can no longer define itself? So, we describe her by her context and we build stories using the bricks of her apparent experiences. We play with her bricks and place them in a way that makes sense to us so that we can understand who she really is. We take what we think we know or what we want to believe and we make something digestible — with a beginning, middle and end. We remove question marks, complexities and anomalies because they don’t fit and when she stares at us blankly, we tell her “No need to speak up, we are cleaning up your story for you — we’ll figure it out and then we’ll tell you who you are and what it all means so don’t worry about a thing. How lucky you are to have people in your life who really want to understand you.” And then we smile a shallow love.

In truth, without any such meddling it is not possible to say much about who she is now, though it is possible to say about who she once was, but we don’t talk about that. That was in the Before. This is the After. It’s a terrible sort of loss that she encountered. The loss that is not tangible can only be felt in the abstract, where intangible things exist…and cease to exist. And the burning sensation of loss and void that is possible in the abstract world can engulf your soul in flames of heat at temperatures that cannot be tangibly experienced or accurately described. A loss from within the abstract is also a loss that can yield an eternal internal burning if the void is never filled. A thing that you can touch, taste, visually observe…that’s a thing that can be mourned, for you knew what it was and you knew how and when and where it existed. And when it didn’t, you knew that it was gone. But with the intangibles, you never really knew what it was, or how and when and where it existed. So how can you know when it’s gone? Do intangibles just disappear? Is it possible to lose something intangible in an enclosed space the way one loses a sock in the bedroom, such that with the will to search comes the possibility of a retrieval? And even if that is possible, how can one know if the loss is permanent or temporary and if it is temporary — in which of the possibly infinite abstracted enclosed spaces to search for it?

And in a world of infinite hiding places for lost treasures and infinite coves to explore, the easiest route is to cover it all with an infinite blank. And that is what she did. Seamlessly. Blank to the past, numb to the present and blind to the future, one thought scrolls in a loud whisper of tiny yet towering block text against the white slate of her mind: “I’m still here.”

Some blank spaces later…

She was shook. By what? Who knows. But she saw her time passing by, like an onlooker watching a movie that felt like a deja-vu. And some sort of life began to grow inside of her. The grounds of herself were fertile with boredom, the perfect conditions for a small sapling of curiosity to grow. She began to wonder about her blankness and what lay beneath, if anything. And she decided to explore. Somewhat aversely, she warily lifted the infinite blank she had used to cover up the world that was too overwhelming to explore in full. And she took a little peek. And it went BOO. A tragic mess of broken bits lay sprawled out into what seemed like an eternity of abstract in destruction. There were insecurities hanging from strangly branches, damp with anxiety, from what she guessed had been a storm of tears. There were shattered fragments of moments she forgot she knew and even some that made her question if they were really hers. And her curiosity continued to grow. She observed dark spots with bits that stuck out like swords, but it was too dark to really get the picture. And there seemed to be creatures in there, gnawing at disfigured traits she once would’ve associated with herself. Yet despite the seemingly incohesive and tattered nature of it all, she recognized the scene instantly. It was her reflection and oh what a sight it was. There was nothing blank about that mess. Then she turned away to catch her breath. Deep. And then, she turned back and went inside to clean it up.

She moved through her vessel, which she had abandoned for so long and as she began picking up the pieces, she wept. Quietly, she wept and wept and whimpered, memories and regret and guilt and shame spilling like wildfire down her cheeks. “How could I have left myself to wither like this?” Her mind was swirling and her heart was reeling. She saw her passions that lay rotting on the dirt; not yet put out of their misery, yet impossible to describe as having any life force. It was the cruellest of existences — one of a slow and paralyzing death that never really came. And then she saw something else. It seemed to glow — faintly — but visibly in the pit of dullness it was surrounded by. And there appeared to be some commotion around it. She inched closer. But she paused at a distance. She saw…she did not know exactly what it was, but she saw enough. A scrap of light. That was being tugged at by two wolf-like creatures. A tiny remnant of hope that the creatures of her mind were fighting over for nourishment; fighting to stay alive. And then. A ROAR that burst out of her in the most spontaneously unrestrained, obscene wail of emotion that shook the vessel into such a major collapse of dark towers and hideous beasts that formed some great pull of energy, forcing everything to the center in a pile of shaking abomination. And then, all was still. And she was in control. Or rather, her emotions were in control, but that had to be better than the total disconnect that had gone on until now. Yet despite the release of her roar, it was not her voice that had been returned and though she now could feel, she could not yet understand those feelings, for they still had no voice. All that had been restored was her animal instinct, which had never been stolen but had lain dormant under the infinite blank that she herself had manifested. She could feel pain again, though she could not reason through it and so like a wild animal in the face of perceived danger, she was captured in a frozen bewilderment. And she looked up and gawked at this grandiose mountain of herself. And she stood there. And she stared. And it was Aweful.

And finally she blinked.

It was some time later that she was finally able to step outside herself, away from that mountain. She was no longer covered in blank and she solemnly swore to herself and all its parts that she would not abandon it again, though she felt some uncomfortable and unidentifiable feeling associated with this promise. All she cared about now was survival, which she believed required living outside the blank whilst also not writhing in pain at the sight of it all. She also began to understand that without the heavy blank that was previously securing her internal mess, some pieces were in danger of falling off and being left behind in the real world. In fact she learned this as she was walking down the street one day and found herself barking at a random gentleman on the street who noted to her that her top button was undone. She had immediately flown into a lion’s rage that sent a sharp memory from her hazardous wasteland, flying toward the gentleman and landing at his feet. It only took her a moment to realize what had just happened as she spotted the hateful memory that had stuck to the gentleman’s shoe as he turned to walk away. And she saw that it was a memory of the thief who had stolen her voice and she watched as it morphed into a black spot of insecurity and shame that now belonged to the gentleman. And just then, falling from the sky was a leaf of remorse and despair that dropped onto and into her, as she realized what she had passed on and lacked the voice to take it back. That is how she embarked upon her quest to prevent dropping anything else along the way, most concerned by the prospect of a growing tower of remorse if she were to drop any more. And thus, she stumbled upon what had been coined, The Chicken Suit for the Soul, branded as a suit for anyone who feared the collapse of their insides and felt the need for a little extra security.

This new brand of suit was making some serious waves in the world and was very popular for its ease of use and effectiveness. All you had to do was slip it on and zip it up with all your pieces carefully tucked inside and the suit would hold it all together. It had become a necessary underwear for the relentlessly broken, which fortunately for the suit-making conglomerate, turned out to be the vast majority of the population. Plus, it was developed at just the right time, since the clean and tight aesthetic had just come back into fashion, with an emphasis on hidden layers and the sexy mystery achieved by not showing too much of oneself. Love Yourself Magazine even published a feature on the suit as “The best gift you can give yourself this season”, describing it as “The tightest hug you will ever receive, without ever having to worry about it letting you go. This suit will sooner allow itself to be torn apart, than allow you to come undone.” Most appealingly though, was the mindlessness of its application, with the wildly popular slogan, “Just Zip It.”, a phrase that would soon become part of everyday motivational language. They would also soon be coming out with a line of these suits with a thermal function, for icy souls whose insides needed melting. The marketing department for the suits predicted the thermal line would likely be bought as presents for someone else and thus decided to release it as a festive special, under the sales pitch, “A present for them, that’s also for you. Break the ice in your relationships.”

In any case, back to she who had no voice and a crumbling self: the suit was the perfect solution to her troubles. And so she made the purchase. She handed the vendor a twopiece of self-sustainability she had dug out of the mess. That day, the vendor went home with a growing pile of riches in self-care, and she went home with her new suit.

Meanwhile, down on Innocent’s Crook, lived the thief. He went by Synner G. He was slick and suave like a modern day dracula, sucking people dry to feed his insatiable thirst for power and control. He fed his ego with stolen goodies and nourished himself with the bowing vulnerability of sweet young things who so easily succumbed to his charm. For this vamp, age was but a number — his victims ranged from mutton to lamb, and this lent him an aura of agelessness, which made him all the more appealing to his victims. When he walked into a room, it grew thick with desire and everybody wanted a bite. When he spoke, he did so with clarity and force. His tone was deep and his words were heavy so when you spoke to him you were entranced by his truth and became encapsulated in a tunnel vision of what he believed and what he wanted you to know. And his glare…it was sensual and furious with hunger and desire that stuck in you like jagged heat making you ooze with carnal fascination, until you were glazed over with a thick, sweet finish of “take me now”, before ultimately melting into his taunting embrace. And just then, when you’ve allowed yourself to fall apart inside of him and you share yourself with him, he takes it. And you realize that what you thought he wanted — what you thought he was looking at and eyeing with desire — wasn’t really that. You see that he was eyeing something else, but you were too lost in the world he built for you to see that you were missing his true desires. And now it’s too late, because you’ve already lost it and how can you steal back from a professional thief?

He spent his days caressing his collection of innocent hearts and stolen goodies. It was a love-hate relationship that he nurtured with these consolation prizes that he used to replenish his self-worth in the absence of any meaningful relationship or real nourishment. People mistook his wanting hunger, for lust, which is what he projected when on the hunt, probably because lust is what he was able to express best. Really though, it was not lust that drove him to thieve, nor could any sexuality quench his undying thirst. He stole what he could to keep his essence alive, at least temporarily, yet what he really needed to feel full was not something that could be stolen. And since the nourishment he consumed was always stolen, it had always been ripped away from its lifeforce and thus could only feed him for so long before losing its lustre. And then he’d need to thieve once more. It was an unceremonious cycle that left him perpetually starving and exhausted from trying to reassure himself that he was only hurting other people for the sake of his own survival. “It’s the food chain”, he’d tell himself. “It’s both a blessing and a curse to be a carnivore…and as they say, it’s lonely at the top.”

One might wonder — did he know there was another way? Did he know that he could save himself from starvation and also renounce his status as predator and thief? Perhaps he did…and perhaps he didn’t allow his mind to venture to such possibilities if he didn’t believe that he was capable or worthy of finding the nourishment his being really craved. Because perhaps he knew that the true nourishment had to be given and continuously shared, which required long-term, ongoing trust and ongoing desire to share. Stealing on the other hand, only required a moment of trust, lending him the opportunity to snatch and run. But now? He had broken so many beings, he thought, that he couldn’t bear to mull over what it would be like to be anything but a thief. He didn’t deserve to live a life free of starvation, of hunt and of self-hatred. But no one saw this inner monologue. Maybe because it wasn’t so much a conscious monologue as a faded tune that played in the depths of his subconscious — barely audible, yet screechingly painful to the parts of him within range, stinging like razor talons dragging across a ceramic plate. He was in pain, constantly, even when he wasn’t even aware of it. And that’s the scariest type of pain — the pain you’re not really sure exists because you can’t quite place it and yet you exhibit symptoms that all suggest the existence of this pain. A true Black Hole. Perhaps that’s what’s driven him to feed on temporary affections — a black hole of pain at the pit of his being, that was perpetually attracting and sucking in an endless supply of nourishment for his pain, that still would never be enough to fill this matter-less black hole. What he really needed? Matter. He needed to matter.

Mattering is essential for survival and is the belief that other people notice you, care about you and rely on you. Typically this is instilled during infancy by one’s guardians, but in many unfortunate cases, the story unravels differently. And such was the case for Synner G, who at his full form was still wanting of matter and thus the black hole thrived over his infant soul. And he basked in his ignorance for it was easier than to face the darkness and vast emptiness inside, with no tools and no buddy to explore it with. And did he feel remorse? Who can say. Of course the remorse existed as a natural byproduct of his thieving endeavors. It lay within him, but whether he felt it or not is a question unanswered. And so, he went about his days as one does, living in a sort of blank of his own.

In such a world of scribbles and blank pages, of torn-out sheets and overlaid script, riding on the swirls of chaos will surely bring you face to face with that which you thought had been left behind, when you never really took the time to clean up and take out the garbage. And so, there they were, once again.

He and she, vamp and victim.

Thief and thieved, part and part.

She stared up at him, wide-eyed and frozen. Her mind was racing, her heart thumping, her palms sweating and yet she stood perfectly still. Like a photograph. She, captured in time, a victim once more.

But then: a Spark.

All the feelings and emotion pent up inside of her — the rage, the loathing, the sadness, the wonder, the questions, the anger, the anger, the anger…

It filled her being and the life coursed through her veins and something poured out of her.

But it was not a roar, not a cry for survival or an animal instinct.

This was her voice.

“You, who looks at me as if I am a stranger, as if you do not know what you stole from me and the manipulative way in which you did so. You who stares blankly, void of emotion, yet I see you ready to laugh when you can peg me as ‘crazy’. Do you know where I have been? The depths of darkness that I have travelled and the planes of pain over which I have scoured endlessly to find what I had lost? Do you know about the tumbling towers in my mind and did you see the wolves in my heart that fought for the last scrap of fading hope that lay helpless on the dirty land of my withering self? When you look at me, can you see the guilt I carry for abandoning myself when the mess was too difficult to face? Or the invisible scars I wear from the eternal battle I fought that I could never win or lose because in your absence, the only one I could turn my rage to was me? And as I stand here now in the skin-tight suit that holds all my pieces together so perfectly in place, can you imagine what I looked like when there were pieces of me falling over the place? When I could barely move without the fear of losing a part of myself along the way and never could get very far for all the time I spent going backward to find something I had dropped and left behind? Are you familiar with the exhaustion that comes when you feel like you’re forever asleep in a haze of nightmare and reality and yet your mind never stops churning and replaying the most awful scenes that no one else can see? A video player in the mind for which you have no control. You haven’t seen me. But do you know how many times I have seen you? In my friends. In my lovers. In the man on the street. And worse still, I see you just as you, when I dare to close my eyes. I am a zombie of the person I once was. Dark rings around my eyes because I have no rest and a purposeless movement except for survival because you stole the figure in my driver’s seat. Breathing and aging, but still only as a part of what once was, and learning how to exist only in part. And who are YOU? Who are You to have made me like this? And how could you be so inhuman so as to consume another’s whole life-force as if it were a mere afternoon snack? How little regard you must have for a human life…”

She trailed off as she glimpsed…her laser eyes beaming through his soul, shattering and burning any swindel of arrogance and indifference her words could find…the black hole at his center. It stared her in the face, challenging her to feed it or attack it — enticing her and appealing to her rage to draw her into it so it could swallow her too. She watched as it thundered and did backflips trying to get a reaction out of her — trying to be noticed — to feel like it mattered. Marvelling at it, inflamed with all kinds of rampant emotions, she felt herself leaning into it but as she felt its force pulling her in, her inner voice tapped her on the shoulder and softly shook its head, coaxing her back into a calmer reality. She opened her mouth to speak, and then she shut it. And she took a moment for herself. He was still standing there with this annoying blankness as if there was a thick wall of marshmallow in between the two of them that would not allow him to digest what she was saying to him. Her words meant nothing because he couldn’t feel her; they weren’t speaking the same language. And so she decided to show him something she had discovered amidst her loss and had continued to work on…

If you recall, she could not be heard since her voice had been stolen and she could not be seen since she was hidden behind her own mask and the veils of others’ ignorance that they projected onto her to make a prettier picture. So, she had begun learning a new form of communication, through an unearthed mode of Feeling. It was some extra sense or language or something that she had stumbled upon when she had first allowed herself to walk into her abstraction of destruction. How she came upon it remains a mystery even to her, but they say that when some forms of sense and communication are paralyzed, other forms gain strength and prominence. Whatever this newfound power was exactly, it enabled her to share raw feelings with another — without describing it in words or displaying it with physical cues. It was a different kind of expression and in her will for her thief to understand what he did, she let her feelings flow through him so that she could be felt.

In a moment, he experienced an eternity. His entire being whooshed in a swirl of dazzling emotion that picked and pulled at every insecurity and fizzled with large bubbles of erupting self-hatred and shame, pumping him up with a never-ending overload of raging emotion, ballooning him into breathlessness, never quite bursting yet always on the verge. Swarms of negative self-talk hurled like daggers so many at a time it was impossible to dodge. Under an all-engulfing attack from the inside out and the outside in, it was like he was about to implode and explode at the same time and yet the simultaneous invasion of both forces, pushing against one another in a Synner G sandwich, felt like the only thing keeping him alive. She too was following this circuit of emotions, riding the wave with him in this little connection she had forged to invite him into her heartmind. And as she floated through, she recognized small fragments of the thief that he had brought into her experience — that he associated with these feelings — and some of these fragments she realized had a familiar feel. And just then she flashed back to the moment when she first lifted her infinite blank and had seen shards of her ‘self’ that she had not recognized as her own. Slowly it began to sink in.

He was broken too. In the same way that she had left a dark memory on the bottom of that man’s shoe, so the thief had dropped dark pieces of himself on her too. And upon this realization, something lit up inside of her. She saw her world for what it was, more clearly now than ever. She saw the broken, rotting bits in the once too-dark parts of her mind and she understood that not everything that she was carrying with her belonged to her. And she looked at Synner G and she saw the same was true. As she watched him writhe with the pain that he had catalyzed inside of her, she saw a man who was more than the simple sum of all his parts — more than his own experiences and emotions. He was also a sum of pieces that he never asked for, pieces that had been dropped on him by other broken souls trying to make it through. She saw him more clearly for what he was, for Synner G. And whilst she retained the pain of her experience and whilst she could now clearly see that what had happened to her was not her fault, she also felt a sapling of compassion growing at her hearth.

He could feel everything. And as the connection of the mind spilled into the physical realm, he collapsed onto one knee, tearing emotion pouring out of his soul, too weak to contain it inside. And then it stopped. And he looked up at her. Their eyes locked. And with her voice and with her feeling, she looked at him in his entirety and softly firmly, she whispered,

“I forgive you.”