~~~~~~~~~~~ For Michael ~~~~~~~~~~~ My Choice Why am I so scared to speak my thoughts aloud? Why am I so scared of being ridiculed, outed, hurted, outcasted? I fear it as I do many things. It lives and breathes a fire of deep. I urge to run against it, away from it, out of it. Yet it resides within me. How do I run from me? In many ways, far and near. Still fear persists. I travel down to the depths of me. I fear persistently, openly, totally. I shiver in shame, shaking still wet from the cold dive within. I mumble my thoughts erase parts of me and still find myself to be a mismatched piece of mishmash. To Fit to Persist to Be to Exist. Which is My Choice? Which do I choose? All are a choice. Some external others internal. Emotions surge and wither to seeds of thought and memory. Some of joy others of misery. I remember and forget most everything. Does this not count for something here? To be imperfect is My Choice. To merely exist is not. Existence follows my commands. It flows and ebbs at my demands. I know this; yet I persist foolishly. Believing images in mirrors surrounding me, I appear to fit. What sort of fool am I to commit such a folly? Nothing changes with nothing chosen. Simply boldly spoken. Perhaps true, yet frightening too. Every choice excludes another. I fit everything and nothing. Imprecise am I, wishing for more and accepting less. Toe the line. Round peg here. Square peg there. Peas in a pod. Simple and same is something that I am not. Simply unique is me. My Choice is to Be Me, to Honor Self. To Fit or not, I dare not encounter. I Honor Self to Be Me. Honor thy Mother. Honor thy Father. Honor Self? How? Aren't I last on the Totem Pole of Love? JOY == Jesus. Others. Yourself. How backwards is this, to consider my needs last, to consider my system integrity last, to consider my self implicitly less than others? Perhaps the misinstructors of my youth fooled me. Perhaps their job was to create fools or students of folly. It's funny how their instruction saved me and harmed me. To rigid for fun, to loose for rigor, I'm prepared for nothing and not ready to do nothing. I fear that I belong no where. Will I find more like me there? Intelligent enough to be more than most and less than others -- I tremble in shame at my shortcomings. I tremble in fear of my achievements. Condemned for more and less of me, I run in fear and hide from me. I portray a picture of serenity, not me. I describe nothing and explain everything. How odd is this to run from me? Perhaps seeing me for me and not as anyone else Honors Me. Observing and Learning. Seeing and Believing. Perhaps this is Honoring Me. Will this new sight bring more? Yes. It brings costly experimentation to see and to do. I miss the old me. The one comfortable knowing and doing the same thing day in and day out. I've changed so much and lost much more. I grieve for who I was. I grieve the loss of her. I grieve for her. I rejoice in now and times to come, glad to be more than I was, glad to Honor Self by My Choice. Huh Chuh @ huhchuh@yahoo.com © March 2003