Modes Mouse - Bukowski

What the fuck is REAL anyway?
Real is what you make it I guess.
Something is real to you,
you wake up, you can't see it, but you feel it,
it is all around you, it's everywhere.
This presence of god you stand behind so much is REAL,
to you at least.
But what about him?
He doesn't feel your god when he wakes up,
his god is a very different one.
Different in every form of praise, in every ritual,
in every way possible, but to him,
HIS god is real, he feels him just like you feel yours.
And what about me?
Honestly, I really don't know.
God is and always has been who you make him (or her).

When I tell people this concept, they always try to explain to me why that isn't true, but they can't. How can you POSSIBLY explain to someone a feeling that is inside yourself? It's like love right? How do you begin to explain what love is to someone who hasn't felt it? She told me that. What I say is maybe they have, someones understanding of love is always going to be at least somewhat different than the next persons, but that is THEIR version of love.

So of the millions of religions on this planet, what exactly makes yours the correct one?

I really just wish people would STOP saying what GOD wants, and what GOD needs. Where does this concept of "GOD" even come from? Really. Is it embeded in us from birth? Do we pick it up at some point in our development either from parents or friends, or.... ugh, I don't know.

I've always played this role of student when it comes to this subject, always absorbing and never giving, at least when it comes to us.

But maybe it's not me, maybe if everyone were to finally exhale and realize that god isn't someone that needs retreats and collection plates and rituals and that all these things are for our own PERSONAL fulfillment than maybe we could all stop trying to convert everyone(or at least secretly wishing everyone would find your god), well than maybe that REALLY is the way to "salvation." We praise for a god in a million different religions and EVERYONE feels they are making god happy....

But what do I care? It's their own personal belief, doesn't bother me, as long as they don't come knocking on my door preaching about salvation or screaming outside an abortion clinic on how we are all sinners.

You know what's real to me? You are.
You have come into my life and have made me better,
I could sit and go on and on about it,
but right now I won't.
I thank my god every night for you being in my life.

Real is the incredible relationship we have that I am willing to drive to where accents and customs change and gas no longer gets pumped for me, just to be US again. Real is the INCREDIBLY difficult sacrifice of sex, something I am a pretty big fan of, JUST because every other feeling you give me makes that wait seem so much more worth it. This is real to me, but you know what isn't?

God telling us we aren't ready.

I feel something inside me telling me to trust my instincts. I don't know if that's god, but dammit, if God made me than he gave me this sense to follow my FUCKING HEART!

Now I'd hope that if God is out there, if he can see this, or hear it, or feel, or I don't know, I am not anyone to even begin to say what God can and can't do, but if he is out there, I would hope that he'd want us to follow this heart he gave us.

We're in each others lives, this reluctant to start relationship has blossomed into an ever intensifying feeling that I could only ever attempt to describe as love. We are one move away from this rubiks cube of a life that has brought us together to finally be complete.... and yet you feel this is STILL not good enough for your God?

All I ask is why?