From Levi to Amia

Dear Amia,

I’m sorry for everything that happened to you. I’m sorry for the chaos, the unnecessary pain, the lack of security. This is not what a child should have. I’m sorry, my love. As my child I just want you to know that I love you with all my heart and all my soul, and that you are the strongest person I’ve ever known; with the heart of a lion and the courage of a tiger. You may have seemed weak to others, but the endurance of compassion isn’t easy for others to understand.

You didn’t deserve what happened to you; I’m sorry and I love you. I love you so much. Don’t believe otherwise. Take my hand, my love. Come forward, into the present. Let go of all that weight. Your engine doesn’t need to be fuelled by the pains of the past anymore. The love and victory you seek comes once you hold my hand. Your chaos can be change, creativity. You don’t have to hold the pain – it doesn’t nurture you. But I will. The road won’t be easy, but at least we’ll have each other. At least we’ll each have someone that loves us. Walk with me.

Satisfaction won’t come from the ecstasy of worship or quenching your anxieties. Anxiety never sleeps. That’s how it works. Join me; let go of the weights. Drop the baby. You’re using it for you instead of taking care of yourself and healing the past. You can only be nurtured in the present. If you want to heal them then pick up a paintbrush. Put the pain on paper so it doesn’t need to reside in you anymore. What happened, happened. But remember your name. Drop the bag and shed the weight that stops you from becoming who you truly are. Walk through the boundaries between the past and the present, and watch it filter out all that is unnecessary, moreover carrying you down.

You have a new identity here. You can wear white and you can be as light as a feather. You can run and you can be the person you’ve always wanted to be. The confusion has been clarified and once you’re here, you’ll find clarity; love and reality (one that is in bliss). I will love you, Amia. Everyday. I will love you, because I love me; and you’re the one who let me be. Thank you. Come through. This isn’t a dream. You want a sportscar? Say yes. You want to own a nice house? Say yes. You want to become who you always wanted to be? Say yes. Whatever you need. I’ll support you, as long as it is based in what is right and healthy. Be present and be with me. Open spaces with clean air beautiful walls await you. Move forward into the future. You have a future to look forward to, but I need you to be [resent to create that reality. I will be there. Just tell me what you need and we’ll negotiate.

There’s a new journey and now we have to fulfil our dreams and I’d like you to come with me. I think you’ll like it. We can do some things your way and some things, mine. We’ll figure it out. I’m moving forwards into a new life; I think you should too. Become ethereal. Become crisp and mystical. Become pearlescent. Become chrome. Join me. Take a step into your future. Shed the skin. Breathe in and become present. You’ll find things to hold onto and carry anyways; But for now, the only thing I need you to hold is air in your lungs for five second intervals.

I love you. I forgive you. I hope you forgive yourself. Goodbye. Hello.

Written on Tuesday 16th November 2021

My Response to “From Amia to Levi”

Paragraph 1 – The need to be loved, wanted, and valued is a valid need, for every human being. Don’t beat yourself over it. It come as no surprise considering that you didn’t get love in areas you should’ve. Really it’s a want to exchange – a want to give love in exchange for love back. That’s a respectable desire. Instead of exchanging money, you choose to exchange feelings of love. You SHOULD aim for meaningful connections, better than lacklustre ones. The only thing I’d say is find a connection with me – hold my hand, and find a meaningful connection with the eternal self; find it in your creativity.

“I can’t continue to carry the baggage of my parents’ negative thought patterns, or the hatred towards those who belittled me in the past.” Then let go of them. Let go and find new thought patterns and ways of seeing.

Paragraph 2 – You’re not dying, you’re shedding and becoming true. I’m not lost, I’ve been waiting for you. We’re here to look after you. Let go of the hurt. Exchange the hurt for this love and peace. Contentment is at your doorstep and calling your name. I’ll give you what you need.

“I’ve been questing for world domination just to hurt those that inflicted pain onto me so long ago and those I believe didn’t support me when I needed them — or at least someone” A worthy cause but we both know that it’s not a win, in that regard. We don’t need that. That dream gets in the way of finding out what our heart truly desires. I’m sorry for those interactions. It seems like a lot of people lack any form of proper respect or consistent interest in respecting you as a valid human being, if it’s not for their own gain. That’s unfortunate, but honestly, fuck them. Let it go. Your anger is valid, but it’s unnecessary; and it’s another weight holding you from peace in the present to actualise your dreams. Let it go. You already won. You’ve already won by being a better version of yourself. You don’t need the past to fuel you anymore. The potential of the future and your present habits will do that for you. Stop carrying rocks to the shore to feel like an underdog. Let the shore do that. Let life be easy for you. We have more important things to focus on. Drop the pain and be empty – make room for the incoming kingdom. I need you to be as free as a child, anyways.

Paragraph 3 – “I should be THIS”, “I should be THAT”, “They should’ve done THIS”, “I NEED this”, “I NEED that” The only thing you need is to stop doing that and let the situation form itself. The best way for you to be prepared to just be open to the possibility of anything happening. “Truly, I want something more.” We both do. So join me. I’ll assert our needs to others as I’ll assert my needs to you — expecting vice versa. Respect me and I’ll respect you. I’ll show you how. “how do I fit into it?” Daring, creativity, and play. “How can I help?” Let go of the past, join me in the present and look forward to the future. Let the future lead you. “How can we terraform the landscape to unlock the vessel’s full potential and all of our own?” Building a portfolio of credibility and getting out of our own way so as to start manifesting our aspirations into the industrial world.

Paragraph 4 – Let it go. Find peace in yourself. Together we’ll have harmony. Be my companion. Marry me. “True Love doesn’t carry, it sustains. Balancing between true love for self. Connected. Friendly. Happy.” Too true.

Paragraph 5 – “Whereas Levi and Felix are hard workers, I find that I’m more of an artistic temperament” We will support your ambitions and you will support ours. “Whereas currently superficial, if humble enough to undergo training and reformation, I could develop only to fulfil my potential and my role towards how I play this game of life” That’ll be the next step – building portfolio, skill level and experience. “I bring freedom, flexibility, and modernism to a team that is strong, stable, masculine, competent but rigid and one-dimensional” Yes, you do. “Whilst I’m being burnt and burnt again, Levi and Felix are having their whole worlds and systems broken and warped” It’s all a part of the process. We knew this day would come. “But I like to think we both understand the nature and necessity of this process, as this is the process that incurred our previous metamorphosis/journey/death/rebirth in the first place” Yes, we do. “It seems harder to end now than it was to begin, because at least we hadn’t built what we left behind. Now we have to move on from what we thought was the final result — but only the stepping stone for the next journey” We now know the life we must life for our enjoyment – a life of building projects and moving onto the next one.

Paragraph 6 – “What is the wound that isn’t healing?” Not getting love and respect from the people around you. “How do I need to be supported?” You need to be encouraged. “What do I want?” Love, community and friendship? To create beauty? “How can we all work together, in harmony?” You’re the oil between my joints. Growth, adventure, daring, openness, compassion, courage, joire de vivre – Peace, stability, discipline, service, authenticity, self-expression, self-reliance. A marriage between the two and aligning of the soul, self and personality. “I need to value myself.” I love you. I value you.

6. Porcelain

I ordered a coffee. Didn’t really want much. It was an espresso. I had ended up in a small, brown artisanal coffee-house after walking to clear my head. From one room to another. I was supposed to meditate earlier, but I said I’d do it later. The constant phone notifications wouldn’t exactly let me forget. I stood to the right side of the counter, beside the pastries, surveying the barista making my coffee as politely as possible. It wasn’t exactly covert in hindsight — just a guy looking up and down from his phone. I’d already picked a seat on the sofa by the wall, close to the window. After bringing my drink there, I laid my left shoulder, with all my body weight, upon the glass window pane — letting the window-frost cool my face. I’d been overthinking lately so there I was: Overheating. I looked around to see all the other people who had nothing else to do that day. People laughing, people talking; Some reading, some working and some minding their own business. The beauty of earphones. All whilst two floating aprons hovered around, clearing tables in the background. I dragged my chin back over my shoulder, scanning the coffee shop: Groups of bohemian art students on the right, two roughly twenty-somethings on what seemed like a date on the mid-right, an elderly couple dressed like twenty-somethings flanking them on their left, while on the mid-left: a girl reading a book with headphones on, and to the far-left: a litter of what-seemed-to-be introverted bookworms. Bohemian in nature too, it seemed. Before I resumed loitering, I quickly rose my head — checking to see if anyone had interrupted themselves to notice how weird I was being. They had not. But as a side note: I had never seen so much leather, oak, and ambient lighting in one space ever in my life. Artisanal coffee to pay for an artisanal commune, genius of a scam. I wish I’d thought of it. No tickets to pay for, just the choice of coffee or awkward looks from part-time graphic designers. But anyway, I sipped my coffee. Slurping with my tongue, hugging onto the underbelly of the porcelain cup, as I vacuumed the hot beverage in the most European fashion I could embody. I then sat, just staring at the pavement outside — my heavy head grailed into my right hand, staring at oblivion, letting my thoughts pass me by. I thought for a while. Just silent, contemplating. Staring at my coffee. It was all a dead man’s game now: I had fled towards the metaphysical planes, and I was already there. I sipped my coffee some more but there wasn’t much left. It was slowly getting colder and heavier, morphing, degrading, degenerating, and I could see the coffee stains ring the inside of the white porcelain coffee cup. Here I was: Lost in translation. And yet, I still had to go home and face my demons.

Some time passed by, and conversations would brush my ear, cars would brush my left eye’s vision. Ambient noise would complement the dimming ambient lights. At this point, other thoughts continued to plague my mind instead of my own. I sat by the window as I watched the rainfall – blank, vacant, but clear at least. I sat doing nothing — somehow awkwardly; Sitting at a four-chair table, alone. Sipping at my cold coffee for twenty-second intervals. The humming of the food fridge played bass to the shop’s shit Spotify playlist. The coffee maker machines followed in accordance. And in my blank stare, my mind allowed in a retrospective of the small but unfortunate events that led me here. Shit. A cultivation and collaboration of mildly disastrous happenings leading towards hopelessness, pain, and confusion. Great… Now abstracted, I stared, at the coffee cradled in my hand. I remembered waking up – No hot water. Checking the meter – No hot water. Canceling my day – No hot water. Wanting to walk down to the coffee shop because – No hot water. Each level just weighed me down and brought other issues with them. Dragging me down lower and lower, deeper and deeper until I couldn’t stay there anymore, otherwise I’d drown. All-of-a-sudden I woke up. I raised my head violently, whipping my head left and right to see if anyone had noticed me daydreaming. Luckily not. My banality kept me camouflaged. I scratched the back of my head, unaware of the floating sweater vests coming in and out in front of me. The mud in my cup had gone cold: I officially had no place there now. I looked out of the window again, staring at the cold evening sky. Just staring. Blue with golden twinkles. I was ogling at the powerlines hanging in the foreground. The birds fluttered in the background, and the clouds dressed beyond. Distracted in observation, my brain faded, suspended in absence. Pungent in emotion, my heart took this chance to speak, bringing forth dreams and movies to my eyes. The bastard… In clarity, I read the questions posed as problems and saw the hints to the code. Problem by problem I unveiled a letter.

I…

I…

I-d-o…

…

I-d-o-n-t-k-n-o-w…

I-d-o-n-t-k-n-o-w-w-h-a-t-I-m-d-o-i-n-g.

click

A door opened.

door opens

I-d-o-n-t-k-n-o-w-w-h-e-r-e-I-m-g-o-i-n-g?…

click

I-d-o-n-t-f-e…

I-d-o-n-t-f-e-e…

I-d-o-n-t-f-e-e-l…l-i-k-e-I-h-a-v-e-a-n-y-c-o-n-t-r-o-l.

I didn’t.

click

I-d-o-n-t-f-e-e-l-l-i-k-e-I-h-a-v-e-a-n-y-c-o-n-t-r-o-l.

…

I-d-o-n-t-f-e-e-l-l-i-k-e-I-h-a-v-e-a-n-y-c-o-n-t-r-o-l…

…

That one was hard. It took me a good minute to realise.

I…

I…

I-d-o-n-t-f-e-e-l-l-i-k-e-I-h-a-v-e-a-n-y-c-o-n-t-r-o-l-o-v-e-r-m-y-l-i-f-e…

CLICK

This was all a shock to me. I had no idea what my heart was trying to tell me; It was encoded. All I knew was: I was getting to know myself for once.

But there was still something left to the puzzle.

I would come to realise that I was afraid that I wouldn’t become the person I wished to end up being, and I’d, instead, become a cog in the machine of a retail job for the rest of my life. But not before knowing why.

I-m-t-o-o-s-c-a-r-e-d-t-o-t-a-k-e-r-i-s-k-s.

…

I-m-t-o-o-s-c-a-r-e-d-t-o-t-a-k-e-r-i-s-k-s!

…

OKAY!!!

I-m-t-o-o-s-c-a-r-e-d-t-o-t-a-k-e-t-h-e-r-i-s-k-s-n-e-c-e-s-s-a-r-y-t-o-a-c-h-i-e-v-e-m-y-d-r-e-a-m-s!

ARE YOU HAPPY?!

…

click

The last door opened.

I walked through.

“Oh my fucking God…”

Holy shit.

I..

Sigh

I-m-w-o-r-r-i-e-d-I-m-i-g-h-t-f-a-i-l…

And there it was: My reason.

Nothing else was needed, all my questions had been answered.

The porcelain had cracked.

All that was left to ask was:

What do I do now?

In death is life

no map
no home
no food
no retreat
only open sky
— and open earth

the world is free
but its resources are not

Each moment is stitched to each other
the strings of the past keep loosening
the next moment is never materialised

- Duty calls to those who lead by following

Home is in the future

starting a new life, is like
letting go of a fire truck

— and holding onto a ferrari

5. Sweet Release (Open−Plan)

4. Repeat

Like a kaliedoscope they glittered above me. Crystallising from thin air. A crown of angels. Like jewels they danced before me, wailing and hailing “Levi, King of Sorrows!”. So I hailed back:

“What the fuck do you want?”

They said nothing,

———————– but one angel drew near.

She lowered my jaw, dabbed her finger on my tongue, then — BANG!

I’m tripping.

(It was like getting shot in the head with a 9mm.

All I wanted was a glass of water…)

———————–

1.Grounded.

It just started as any other winter day. I was bored, stuck inside and family was gone. I had nothing to do so I was just watching Netflix, then I asked myself, “Do I still have acid?”. I remembered that I had some left from when Martin came over. So I said “fuck it, I guess I could do some”. I had half-a-tab in my sock draw anyway. So I got out of bed and reached for the top draw, pulling it out and scooping under all my hand grenade shaped socks to find the tab. “Where is it?…”, A-ha! We’ve got something going here now…

(Talk about initial room settings, briefly, use an action, e.g. getting a glass of water(but delaying it by saying”nah, I’ll just get it later”). Details, Details, Details)

I closed the draw and hopped back into bed, this time in a seated position.

Peeping at the stamp-sized bagee I sift air through my nose, taking one tuck of air into my lungs. I inspected the bagee, seeing the smiley face stare back at me and envisioned all the endless possiblities. I stared for a bit too long. Hopefully my mum doesn’t come back early. I swayed my head just for one last check to see if anyone from the other end of the street can see the bagee of LSD through my window. No? Okay. I pulled the sealing apart, opening the thing like a packet of crisps, and with much grace I dragged the half-tab of acid out of the bag. This thing was colourful. Saturated would’ve been more appropraite. With not much thought I fed the thing into my mouth – laying it just under my tongue. Heart beat was already rising but that was just me being excited. I kicked my feet up the floorand transfer back to lying down on my bed looking at the cieling. Oh boy.

I grew bored of waiting. Netflix wasn’t doing much for me so I said ‘fuck this’, and reached into my pocket to pull my phone out of my pocket. Unlocked it, swiped it, tapped it, watched it. As usual, I scrolled down and again but first double tap then -scroll, double tap, scroll, double tap, scroll, …, nah, scroll, double tap. It would carry on and on and then things started to change… (Talk a bit about the environment getting manipulated, then specific objects in the next paragraph. Obstacles? e.g. Getting a glass of water again)

(The station – opn, rough 7, nevermind – nirvana, too late – washed out, Denzel Curry first album)

2. Take-off -Slight wavering of surroundings/visions

Visions

(Kandinsky, monet, youth culture photography) (Blank banshee, gunna, radiohead, tame impala let it happen bathroom song, Szerencsétlen)

A burst of vertigo disrupts my sense of orientation. My sight zooms in and zooms out. I ‘ping!’ out raising my head, stretching my neck like a phone cord, to the Gods. The room metamorphised into a sphere in which a lens is clear cut: Stretching the me like fabric. Each hemisphere of my brain is pulsating, sending wifi signals from my cortex all over the place. Like infrared, my bloodshot eyes autofocus onto the beams bouncing off the walls and mirrors. Light, sound, and colour all taste of gasoline, and the drip the back of my throat tastes of stardust.

3. Turbulence – Disruption into waves (Breaking into the new reality)

Astronomically fucked. Stupendously cogni-fucked. Mentally-ridden without a saddle by Jupiter himself. Why do my feet feel like they’re floating? Oh fuck, my frontal lobe crystalised, meta-cementing itself, contracting like a bicep. I shouldn’t have taken so much… My head expands under the constriction of my headphones. Absorbing the music and the distortion it caused to my vibrating ears, I could feel myself shapeshifting. Like a remote a was now attuned to multiple frequencies at once. I could feel the tectonic plates of my brain grind against each other. FUCK! My eyes would flash and I’d transport each time. My head fell heavy and my neck grew weak. My fingers pulsated with rushing blood running through them. The plasma electrified my fingertips. My legs numbed – It felt like I had flew to space and my legs had detatched so I can burn the turbo chargers. I could feel my feet which were telling me that we had left the earth’s gravity, while my eyes still said there’s a ceiling above me. My vision was washing and waving, everything was fading, I would move my hands across my face and see ten fingers overlapping in a blurry motion. Almost as if a video broken into stills. I saw the colours that surrounded me, fizzing before my eyes – Hazing in grain. I watched upon the heavens where millions and millions of seats were booked in to see me perform this life that I live every day and cheer me on my everyday fight and struggle to win the battle over myself and the forces that conspire against me. I fell to my knees at the introduction to my insignificance. Seeing stars, black holes and nebulae that rivaled the size of my ego and won by a landslide. I felt the grasp of he universal forces hold me in place and peel off my ego and discard it before me like rotten orange skin. Here, I was face to face with my very own ego, seeing it, it’s flaws and it’s hold that it’s had over me for the past ten years. It was at that moment I truly started to witness a vision. But then– Holy shit… Holy shit! I see angels! I see angels, what the fuck?

BRING OUT DEEP FEELINGS OF ANXIETY AND FEAR, NO CONTROL

Oh Boy… All was loud. Nothing but confusion and loud jazz. Nothing was certain, everything I saw was improvised. Matter became illusion and abstract turned all to constructs and concepts. SHOW DON’T TELL.

It took a minute. Bangs and clashes produced thunderstorms in my head, lightning stricking my being. Clenches and half-seizures fought my being. Sectoins Locked, the rigidity caused my brain to harden. The resistence defied itself. The love was still sober. But after poured juice of heaven-water, seasoning the thoughts and intects and flavoring the state of my mind. The clouds unseamed, dissapating like steam form a kettle, the moisture lead to dry clarity.

A surge of plasma radiated from my skull, and my head split open like a banana peel. I dived back into a pool of metaphorical water, drowning out the droning sounds of the local estate beyond my windows. I swear to fucking God I’d never splashed like that.(Gerard Richter, Francis Bacon, illusion techniques)

— Carousel ends/break from the pattern

“You never die so there’s no sweet release.”

4. Ascension(Broken through the clouds/Enlightenment/letting go/arrival)

A minute of silence. The winds stop. The walls remain. I take a deep breath. Nothing happens. The fluid recoils of tenderness wriggle through my brains crevices. Frequencies jostle through my brain meat and I my head balloons, expanding beyond these walls of skin. I don’t know what to do, so I just laid there and let the sprites take over me. First I could feel my first, then I could scrunch my sheets feeling it’s magnimonious texture, dry and crisp like draft paper. I clinged on only to let go and slowly sink into my mattress with duvet engulfing me. It took me a good minute to realise I didn’t know what I was doing. But the music wouldn’t stop. It only got louder and louder. The sound was translucent like plastic, colouring my lucid dream. In ephemera and ecstacy I smiled, then laughed, then I screamed. I screamed. I was free, I was happy. I was in love. The hands of the grip and slid its way down from my neck. Loosening my tie. I laid there jacked up and expanded. Spirit and soul, unlocked. I closed my eyes and just became. My toes loosened, my shoulders dropped, my smile cracked. I was lighter than ever and I had sung, all __ became harmonious. Layered onto each other. Poetry was made, balance was retained, I hovered and hallucinated, letting go. My third day had come, I rose from my soul, out of my body and I span, leaking into the air and absorbing into stratosphere.

I would end only fall asleep.

7. Deliverence

(mattattack426, howiewonder, mr.babies, simplicity, da vinci codex)

Now slowly sinking into darkness, with my eyes closed, a being offerred it’s hand out to me. It was me. (Travelling through james turrell coloured rooms, until finally in white one with open ceiling, the court of doves)

(I became light) Sinking into my dream, I saw myself being sacrificed. Mid-air my skin shredded, my muscle fibres unravelled like ribbons. My fat within my breasts disolved and my body fizzled into noise, shedding all that barred flight. All that was left as a pale, gelatinous, mould of a human being. Evaporating into gas, the figure open its eyes with yellow beams shooting from it’s eyes. With it’s eyes open it rose from the slab, higher within the infinite white. With a pale yellow radiating behind it, I saw the infitine black constrict from the sides. With open arms, floating, the being looked at me, then looked up, letting itself fade out. The with one last suck-in, it blew white across the dimensions

5. Cruise/Voyage/En route — moving forward. Shortest one.

I awoke the next day, nonchalant to what had just happened, to a new life, a new repetition, a new routine. I rolled around, looking for my phone: It was nine a.m. I heard my call. I sat up in bed, feeling better. Something felt right. My room was fine, and my mum wasn’t back yet. I transitioned towards the edged of my bed. The sun was rising, the house was clean. In astonishment, no one was home, and I was alone. How it should be. Refreshed from the depths of my dream, knocked out and revitalised, I walked to the kitchen and poured myself a glass of water, watching the skyline. I drank my water then stepped back. I stopped to reflect on everything achieved and encountered within the last 12 hours. I realised my fate and I accepted my new course:

Take-off. Turbulence. Ascension. Repeat.

I awoke feeling like shit(Show don’t tell). My mouth was dry, it felt like Arizona. My joints aching and stiff. I went out to the toilet, pulled my trousers down, and whipped out the little one. My piss was coloured in rust. I stretched, tearing the strands that make my flesh. My face wrinkled, droopy, oiled. Somehow still flaky. I felt like shit, but I didn’t forget what happened.

Use last paragraph to really use some poetic language; look at photos by @ howie wonder, mr babies and mattattack426 and bridget riley, george condo and Francis Bacon. Look into illusion techniques, brain puzzles, kaleidoscopes and the da vinci codex. Regular show too. Expand it then condense it. Bring some of the story from the previous draft too. Listen to high music.

Bland muted Contasting- colourful Colourful Light

neutreal(Still give it some punch Sand Hard Soft Fluid

The universe becomes my stadium.

Use writing notes from journals, finish adding ket experiences, read some science things, watch recounts of lsd experiences

Add sensing and intuitive details and actions of environment in first paragraph

Add rejected material below

A surge of plasma radiated from my skull, and my head split open like a banana peel. I dived back into a pool of metaphorical water, drowning out the droning sounds of the local estate beyond my windows. I swear to fucking God I’d never splashed like that. My eyes flashed white while my brain fried and my fingers retracted like sushi rolling matts.

I was getting shot in the head with a 9mm. Suddenly I was bending backwards towards the ground from which I came and felt the colours surrounding me, fizzing towards eyes. My vision was washing and waving oh-no, here we go again. I think I’m tripping.

disoriented

out of touch, out of place, out of this world

Kurt Vonnegut tips

Edit like last time

reading through your writing a few times to tighten and tweak, though – but an important part of the process to get used to – you might want to print it and write on the sheets, or save different copies so you can see the evolving versions)

Refer to notebook and board, then add to board from note book

Use notes from notes app for porcelain and add to board

Add urban elements of room

Make sure it’s all one tense

Take-off. Turbulence. Ascension. Repeat.

Fade 2 Black

So he started writing, but then
he started thinking...

Risky Business

Wish you well,
the nights aren't as cold anymore

Here come the tears, but
we both knew summer was coming

Pass the salt

Grit my teeth\
Cut my sleeve\
Die in peace\
Pass my genes\

From Amia to Levi

Pain. It’s always been there. It was here then, and it’s here now. I’ve come back to new walls and new surroundings. My love for others, rotten with the need to be loved, wanted, valued – by organisms outside of myself. My search for love has been reclassified as a want for meaningful connection. The sudden change is frustrating. I can feel the friction of this life with my old. I can’t continue to carry the baggage of my parents’ negative thought patterns, or the hatred towards those who belittled me in the past. This new future, this present, won’t seem to let me.

So I’m dying, purifying. At the moment, I am lost and so is Levi. Huh… Levi… He’s new. I met him, not too long ago, but he was just a voice — now apparently the true master of this human’s soul. Interesting… Don’t get me started on Felix. I don’t even know who he is. Never met the guy. But, he’s been taking care of the vessel so I guess he’s ok. The vessel has been looked after but I need looking after too. I need that. I need love. I’m so hurt. I’ve been so starved. I need something. I’ve been questing for world domination just to hurt those that inflicted pain onto me so long ago and those I believe didn’t support me when I needed them — or at least someone. Through this process, I’m learning that approval should come from within instead of outside, but I’m so empty inside. Well, there’s just a lot of pain that I don’t want to look at.

The weight of these expectations crushes me. “I should be THIS”, “I should be THAT”, “They should’ve done THIS”, “I NEED this”, “I NEED that”. I apparently need everything to be perfect so I don’t need to look inside, or look back. Yet I continue to exist as a being gripped by the talons of the past. Truly, I want something more. I have wings, but I’m not even grounded, I’m chained — by string. The mind is what keeps me attached. Guarded by the patterns indoctrinated into me by those around me who couldn’t love themselves. And with their lack of self-love and self-respect, they lacked the resources to assert themselves righteously so instead they bullied me. Now I sit here lacking the same. Yet, what Levi and Felix have built seems to be amazing — but how do I fit into it? How can I help? How can we terraform the landscape to unlock the vessel’s full potential and all of our own?

A memory reappears: My secondary school music teacher, Mr. Pope. Reminding me of a good deed I committed, that only he witnessed. He told me that that was who I am. Someone who helps people. Someone empathetic for others. He would also tell me how my parents could be partly responsible for some of the pain in my life. That day, I helped someone. I need to heal Babi. I need to heal young Amia. But at what point? When did I start hurting and stop giving?

I never stopped. My problem was that I gave too much — to the point of unnecessary self-sacrifice and self-humiliation, all for the gratification of a few bruised egos. Never Again.

True Love doesn’t carry, it sustains. Balancing between true love for self. Connected. Friendly. Happy.

How do I work? How do I need love? What is the wound that isn’t healing? How do I need to be supported? What do I want? Whereas Levi and Felix are hard workers, I find that I’m more of an artistic temperament. My attributes, yet unmastered, are those of a beauty and sociable kind. Whereas currently superficial, if humble enough to undergo training and reformation, I could develop only to fufil my potential and my role towards how I play this game of life. I bring freedom, flexibility, and modernism to a team that is strong, stable, masculine, competent but rigid and one-dimensional. There must be compromise and I don’t expect to be a ruling class in this 3-way partnership. But I do hope to contribute to the team in a way that is valuable to the team and valued within the team. I still can’t work out who’s hurting more from the change. Whilst I’m being burnt and burnt again, Levi and Felix are having their whole worlds and systems broken and warped. So life’s not feeling too great right now for either of us. But I like to think we both understand the nature and necessity of this process, as this is the process that incurred our previous metamorphosis/journey/death/rebirth in the first place. It seems harder to end now than it was to begin, because at least we hadn’t built what we left behind. Now we have to move on from what we thought was the final result — but only the stepping stone for the next journey.

But the questions still stand: How do I work? How do I need love? What is the wound that isn’t healing? How do I need to be supported? What do I want? How can we all work together, in harmony? Levi was about work, discipline, authenticity, mindfulness, internal power, self-respect, self-mastery, self-assertion, competence, service. I, Amia, in brightest terms, was about helping others, empathy, art, beauty, giving love, freedom, adventure, connection, knowledge, enthusiasm, risk. How do I need love? I need to value myself.