Sometimes I set rules upon myself. Rules that have stuck to me from a time before.  Perhaps a word, a saying, a post, a telling, an insult, or advice. Perhaps the news, a reading, an article, or a thought. Rules that materialize and become real, and have a life of their own. They live. They breathe. And they wallow in me. They make me cry or weep or scream.

Sometimes the rules feel thick and deep: muck and mire and all things fire. Sometimes the rules feel light and airy, with a consistency of jello—something to bounce off of and expand into. I get trapped and confused and mingle in the ever-changing texture.

Sometimes the rules feel bleak and non-purposeful, not necessary, silly, or even stupid; as much as I despise the word stupid, the rules feel that way. All contorted, sorted, and placed out to trap and confuse. To leave downtrodden and in misery.

Sometimes the rules feel abstract and unreal. Like an invention to appease the masses or control, or mask what rests beneath.

There are rules to everything and everyone, as if we are part of some gigantic game. Move forward this way and in that direction, but not too fast or too slow, or too willingly, or too purposely. Step back and allow space, but not that much space or that much emptiness. Fill up this area. Not so high, though, and not so narrow. Go wider. Go denser. Go more to this side. Not there. There. Over there!

You see? You see the rules, how they sway and mix and mingle and disperse? How one builds atop the other and then just vanishes like the light of day; when all along the sun remains. The rules remain. They are like a haunting, a ghost with an endless appetite that eats away, dismembering thoughts and peace. Taking the peace of mind with the pieces.

I am not a woman of rules. I am a woman of being, of breathing, of living, of feeling, of experiencing, of accepting, of loving.

If you do not have rules then you cannot set me in a box, place me where you think I belong, where you think I dwell. If you do not have rules, you cannot see me with eyes of judgment and distaste, cannot build me up, only to knock me down and watch as I bleed.

If you do not have rules, you cannot make me bleed.

Rules. What are they? What do they be? And how do I stop the rules inside of me?