The complexity of what is, and also what isn’t.

It’s the very fact that what you are looking at in front of you is something to you but also isn’t something.

But little did you know, when you realize that you’ve figured out what that thing is, you have to understand how irrelevant that is to a select few people, or a group of people, or some mass of people. An amount of people.

That thing that is in front of you that you have identified as “a thing” is not the "thing" to many people. It’s something different. So if many people see something different then what is it? Is it a thing, or is it not a thing? Is it nothing? Does it exist?

It’s in front of you, isn’t it? Is it a dream? Or is it something that we were told? Is your parent a parent or a relative? It’s both, isn’t it? But what if it’s neither? A family isn’t a family when it’s pronounced familia. It’s different.

But each word I write is simply clicks on my keyboard. There are so many options on this device:

zxcvbnm,.asdfghjklqwertyuiop1234567890-=`’/][

Look at that. That isn’t an essay on contemporary feminist theory. Those are characters on my keyboard.

But those things can make up a play, or a novel, it can organize my thoughts into something only I can read (which usually is the case). These words are a thing and they are not a thing.

It's a trick, an ongoing prank where someone really has been doing a good job at not cracking under pressure.

Someone’s got to really believe it to be able to hold on to these words for so long.

Someone…

I suppose I’m one of those someones.

Using words to reach a medium, something higher than me. What do I yearn for? Why do I wish to communicate? What’s there that I don’t have here? Is communication a power to you? Or is it the quote, "Happiness doesn’t mean anything unless it’s shared"?

Something along those lines.

Maybe I wish to be heard. Maybe I am heard, but I wish to express myself better. Is it that I began expressing myself when I was a child and now I seek what I’ve lost? Will I be able to express myself in the way that I did when I was a child?

Will I be able to express myself even without liquid courage? Without a caffeinated beverage. Will I be able to listen so intensely to my soul that I find a pocket of air? Air so pure, it’s never been touched by our modern world.

Something so distant in the past that we’ve forgotten the scent. The sweet breath. Am I seeking this breath? To open myself is a means … is it necessarily something that I HAVE to share? I wonder. I express myself to myself and have been for a long time.

Countless bits of writing that have never left the safety of my archive. So many words and thoughts are spoken in my own head or out loud in a space far removed from a familiar face. Familiar in the sense of human to be specific.

But then isn’t all of the things you are expressing an outward expulsion? Am I pulling or expelling? I toss and I pull and I reshape, and I conduct, and I organize. There's no real solidified action to my thoughts.

but there is a sense that my thoughts, my words, my expression, I’ll consider this, is from within and wills itself outside.

No, I suppose you don’t have to express to anyone anything. But in some ways, you are speaking to something.

Let it be the spirits, the divinity that’s a part of you, the water, and the trees.

Let it be nature.

Let nature guide expression, whether you wish to share or not.

But in all things... come as you are.

A Note:

This is pulled from my DEEP archive of writing. I was pulled to this specifically because I found a lot of answers here and I hope that I can in fact share it with you to offer inspiration in some way shape or form. I was telling myself that I didn’t need to share this, but after a few months I did, and I’m more excited to share it now than I was then.

I think I’d like to continue pulling more from my archive and finding some bits that might be pertinent to the work I’m doing now, and if you enjoy that, wonderful, if not, that’s alright.

Much love today and every day,

Matt Piper 🐅🌱