I am not my own.
My body is not mine. The boundaries of my skin hold the multitudes that began merging within me in 2010. They came through again and again and I became them; horse, human, lightning, the light and lighted one. Again and again, they merged and melded into a being that was as recognizable as she was before but not the same.
My heart doesn’t beat for me. My heart beats for those who have chosen this vessel as their memory bank, their ways of knowing within every fiber of my being, their echoes within my blood, their being born again within mine to be shared with whom they have chosen me to transmit. My heart beats for those to whom I’m guided and directed. Though I am ignored, my heart beats for them and in their kin; born, unborn and waiting with ‘bated breath.
My thoughts are not mine own. Thoughts that allow others to process situations and scenes they are in or observe are not permitted to me. When thoughts arise that Others outside me and within the interior of me do not like, I’m struck by lightning fast and lightning sharp responses, trained like a dog with electricity to not think of or for myself, to slow down before I get ahead of the plan that is not mine.
My dreams are not mine own. I do not have them in the way others do whether in the sleeping world or in the imagined one. My dreams belong to others; They can see, I cannot. My path is not mine own. Any deviation from this or that laid out by the Gods themselves results in more than a shock to the inner systems and outer edges; honed to cut deep, through the detritus and denial.
“This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man,” said Polonius.
My skin is not mine own. By turns out of my control and any context know to others I am bird, wearer of hair and hide, bark from the aspen that sways in ways that I, the human heart that holds her, cannot match. When Ponderosa becomes me, I touch places in the sky and depth within the ground an imagination cannot go. Horsepower courses through me at odds with my own exhaustion and the thundering herd defies the quiet stillness within. My hair is rooted antler that serves as lightning rod, star stirrer and transmitter; one of love, of memory and connection that cannot be had within the limitations of dermis. From my scalp, the flame of the Eternal Return burns and will return no more once this vessel is worn out.
My voice is not mine. It is owned by Ancients and I owe it to others to give them voice yet I do not know what to say, what message they would have me share, what echo that could touch the heart of man, reach beyond his fear to touch belief and hope and peace.
I am not alone in my own skin. Mine own self is not permitted to exist. What vestiges remain are soldered into the Becoming.
I am not mine own.
I am yours. To you, I am true. For you, my heart beats and they live on through me. They, them. Those Ones whose blood beats and memories echo through my veins. For them, to them, I am true. I am truth.
I have been homeless for a week and a day. There’s a place to move into on 3/2 but I need $2K to move in (1st and last month’s). Any help at all is greatly appreciated: Paypal is http://paypal.me/IngridOliphant Venmo is @Ingrid-Oliphant-1 and Cashapp is $IngridOliphant Many thanks!!