berlin is a city filled with ghosts. it’s filled with the memory of a soul divided under its vibrance and inspiration, under its guilt and angst. but above all, it’s a city built upon a haunted psyche trying to move forward and build a new sense of self.
of course i would come here. i needed its help, a spiritual sister who’s suffered trauma under its resilient, stoic facade.
i had my breakthrough yesterday.
i understand now.
i am not the ghost.
the ghost.
his name is eli.
i trusted him but that had no value to him. he promised to make sure that no one could ever come near me because i belonged to him.
i’ve fought his grip for 7 years, becoming so powerful and expansive that he and those like him would never be able to have any power or over me. yet, he has managed to succeed in his original intention.
a person intent on evil can fulfill his intentions by haunting you in the darkest refuges of night, waiting in the shadows until the moment you feel you are safe, the moment you feel you are anonymous, the moment you feel you are whole again.
and then out of nowhere, he appears with his sword and the devil’s smile and you realize, he will always find you. because he’s inside you.
the man is dead to me.
but now, how to kill a ghost.
Moments can be perfect. Like a poem or song. Everything is there, just as it should be. But life is everything in between. Life is never pure. Life is confusion. Life is the unpredictable. Life makes you vulnerable.
You revel in your angst. You like the moment… because you feel alive without really living. You play a familiar role… even the “real” you you choose to share is a familiar song with a small jazz improv bit that is quickly dropped when it stops feeling familiar.
But you are not being fair to yourself. You’re more than you think you are. You are more than someone who channels. Everything you use to describe your “magic” deals with stealing and borrowing from others…unknowingly proclaiming that you are nothing more than a radio capturing a signal. But you are so much more than that.
It’ll take someone with a stable sense of love and trust to allow you to discover this.
Unaware, I hated myself and denied anything more than charming others with the ‘Me’ I liked. But in doing so, I hated those around me for not knowing the real me.
But I met someone with that love and trust. It was tough. I didn’t believe her. I thought she was crazy. But slowly she showed me that what I thought was empty was filled. She showed me what it was filled with without condescend.
I still doubt that what is there is there. I still battle with self hatred. But I can trust and love.
(Stephan Jackson’s the man. I hate him.)