Sometimes day breaks and I break myself against it.

Sometimes life just flips over and stops making sense and I’m left flailing, knowing nothing.
Sometimes it’s me that flips. Either way, I am left senseless and failing, needing… 

… something.

Spinning my wheels but going nowhere.
Clawing for purchase but still sliding.
Spiraling ever downward no matter what I do.
Perceived futility leaves me

so.

Angry.

helpless powerless the red creeps in around the edges blood pounds in my ears roar of fury barely buried in my throat straining for freedom straining to release me from the need for rational thought that voice inside whispering just be angry let it overwhelm and carry it all away anger makes you strong if you scream loud enough if you’re frightening enough the problems will all go away and you won’t care you won’t think you’ll just be

But I refrain. Rage is just an illusion of power. It creates nothing, fixes nothing, builds nothing. It is weakness, not strength. It is the animalistic manifestation of fear. I restrain my animal self and I breathe.

I am a man.

I am a man and man’s unique gift is control. God gave us mastery over our world, our fate and ourselves. No other creation has this gift. It is what makes us human. My perceived loss of control paradoxically entices me to lose control of myself. To submit to anger… to that animal inside of me.

Yet I refrain.

You see, I am a lot of things:
I am a vagabond and a vagrant.
A malcontent and a philosopher.
An artist. A critic.
Student, truant, and teacher.
I am a hooligan and a vandal and a builder and a peacemaker.
I am a chimera but I am a man.
Put together from mismatched parts.

I think we are all chimeras.

I am an absolute mess, but…
I grumble and fracture and crumble at the edges but…
I remain me.
Just… me.

Part beast and part angel and greater than the sum. I am a man – a walking contradiction. I have to be broken to be made whole. Put back together by Love. Kept together by Faith. Love and Faith and overwhelming Grace binding me together as I stand here struggling, fighting with myself, waging the war between me and that other me.

I am whole and I am wholly broken and I will remain broken…

But I’m me.
I’m still me.
By the grace of God, in spite of myself, I am still me.

Dear God, help me stay me…