Thursday, June 15, 2006
And it becomes so easy to let it fall away.
Locked in a glass cage.
Curled up in false sleep, defensive.
The tower of cards shudders with every breath.
Watching as sanity passes by.
Isolation deliberately chosen, brutally enforced.
Quiet.
Time drips past, reason gushes through.
And the threads that hold us together fade away.
Why won't it go away? I'm scared. No, I'm not. We're not so very different. I feel my sanity slipping. Block by block they fall apart, away, and crumble to dust and ashes. I can't see them anymore. And I don't want to. I can't take that first step, and neither will they. And then when the time comes we all smile and say hi, playing that foolish game of love, life and friendship. I wont go forward, but I can't go back. Stuck in an impasse, watching. Joy and pride an alien memory. Somehow it all seems so irrelevant. We can't go back anymore. And I can't move forward, because I'm not there, not without you. It feels so easy to let go, when there is no reason to cling on. I said, that is how it is now, that's how it always has been, and that's how it always will be. I made it this far on my own, and will keep going until I fall apart, and we will see the lies and tears and truth that sought to tear me apart when that happens. Despite everything, despite all that surrounds me, I am still alone. Inevitably, irrevocably so. I can't bind others to me, nor bind myself to others. That is selfish. In the end, we all die alone. Life made me alone, and I chose to be alone. It shapes me, grew with me, made me who and what I am. What I was, a forgotten memory. I do not remember that person I used to be. And it no longer matters, not anymore, not in a future where brother rises against brother, where the child strikes back at the father, and all the world falls into chaos over money, power and fear. There is much beauty in the world, despite all that threatens to rend us apart, and that's what keeps me alive, to see these things, touch them, admire them. But not with them, oh no, that would spoil their grace, their elegance. There is beauty in a great many things. Beauty in power, beauty in nature, beauty in compassion. There is also beauty in chaos, beauty in destruction, beauty in pain. All these are beautiful, just different kinds of them. And it unites us, drives us apart, and we let them, because we don't know better, can't see anything else beyond what we have, and I suppose it is alright, for we don't need them, those who cannot see. I don't need them, for I've always been alone. Even as a child, always alone, caught up in a fantasy, unfit to live and compete in the real world. But is it all real? We question that, every generation, every century, every eon, and yet there is still no answer. And perhaps there is no answer. I choose to be alone, because it strengthens me, keeps me sane, keeps me alive, helps me to breathe. Because if I let them in it hurts all too much, drowns me in empathy, love, compassion. And it's just so much easier not to feel, not to feel the touch of pity, taste the bitterness of jealousy, of betrayal. Not to leave myself vulnerable, but in my solitude I am all the more vulnerable to that game of lies and manipulation, both harder and easier to break, and so much more difficult to put back together, because there is nothing left to repair in that cruel game of truth and lies. And yet I'm still safe from it, because the hunter has not set me in its sights, saw no reason to, for in my solitude I became invisible to those who stalk the hunting grounds, with nothing to catch their eyes. And I'm grateful, for once, for that simple presence I have that draws little attention as long as I keep my mouth shut and my actions quiet. But I want them to break me, want someone to break me, leave me broken, hurt, vulnerable. Teach me what it means to let go, to feel, to be vulnerable again. Sometimes, pain can be an astonishingly good teacher, reminding us that we're human, agonising nerve by agonising nerve, the pain serving to remind us that we can feel, can breathe, can think, can be alive, that we're not just puppets, emotionless dolls going through the motions. Pain is real, and it is educational. Happiness is far too easily taken for granted, and thus less effective as a teacher. I want to break open that shell around me, or else I will die without ever having lived, yet I fear. Fear that leaving the shell would make me vulnerable, but truth is, is the egg not vulnerable as well? Questions, so many of them, yet can't be answered. Will not be answered. What is it then, that leads me back to this path again and again, where I flagellate myself, punish myself, torture and brutalise, all down that familiar path of lies and deceit, of tempting sin and leading into madness and chaos. And I love it and hate it because it is all too easy to lose myself in that vortex, all too easy to give up control over the dark half, and I hate it and hate it because it keeps me from love, life and sanity. But I keep going down that road again and again, willingly drowning myself in sin and tears of blood, drinking of the bitter brew of regret, delighting in and repudiated by the musky scent of guilt and hatred. Oh how I love to soak in these quagmire, leaping into the heart of the maelstrom, sticking a foot into quicksand, tempting fate, playing with dangerous stakes. And I stake it all out at the poker table, everything I have and more, always the usual stakes, never more, never less. The usual stakes, of sanity, of life, of future and happiness all rolled into one. I staked myself, because that is all I have left. In the end, in the end, the end, the end, all I have is myself and nothing else. And no one needs me, because I don't need them. I don't want to need them, so I keep pushing, playing that game. Like an elegant dance, back and forth, foils thrusting in succession, quick volleys and rapid ripostes, never ending, thrust to the heart for a point, and begin again. And isn't it all beautiful, the psychedelic colors wrought by sin and chaos and that delightful condition known as insanity. Abstract art for fools. And fool I am, for I play a mindless game with no prize, and no end in sight. I don't need some old, moldy book telling me that. I have always known, ever since I've begun to play. ANd I don't want the light, that redeeming light, to clean away the dirt over my grubby form. I rolled in the mud for that dirt, I needed it, a marker of my sins. I don't want to be clean, can't stand to be clean, because I feel so unworthy, and as all unworthy ones are, covered with muck and silt, outcast. I harbor no illusions of salvation, of a gentle, redeeming light. I harbor no hopes of rising from the ashes, no hopes of reclaiming glory---if it had ever been mine or there in the first place. I was fallen, am fallen, maybe had always been, never in a high place, living down in the lower castes, enviously looking up yet knowing that we could never reach. No angel, no devil, just a simple unwanted object displacing air. But it's all good, because I know. At least I know. And oh how I much don't want to. But it's all too late. You can't take knowledge away. It's too late for me, but not for the rest of you. Live, like you have never before. Live, because I can't. Live, so I can watch you, and hate you for it. Because I need to hate you, because the alternative is love, and I can't do that, not now, not forever. So please, live well and happily, so I can despise you. My sanity rests on it. Please?
]
Locked in a glass cage.
Curled up in false sleep, defensive.
The tower of cards shudders with every breath.
Watching as sanity passes by.
Isolation deliberately chosen, brutally enforced.
Quiet.
Time drips past, reason gushes through.
And the threads that hold us together fade away.
Why won't it go away? I'm scared. No, I'm not. We're not so very different. I feel my sanity slipping. Block by block they fall apart, away, and crumble to dust and ashes. I can't see them anymore. And I don't want to. I can't take that first step, and neither will they. And then when the time comes we all smile and say hi, playing that foolish game of love, life and friendship. I wont go forward, but I can't go back. Stuck in an impasse, watching. Joy and pride an alien memory. Somehow it all seems so irrelevant. We can't go back anymore. And I can't move forward, because I'm not there, not without you. It feels so easy to let go, when there is no reason to cling on. I said, that is how it is now, that's how it always has been, and that's how it always will be. I made it this far on my own, and will keep going until I fall apart, and we will see the lies and tears and truth that sought to tear me apart when that happens. Despite everything, despite all that surrounds me, I am still alone. Inevitably, irrevocably so. I can't bind others to me, nor bind myself to others. That is selfish. In the end, we all die alone. Life made me alone, and I chose to be alone. It shapes me, grew with me, made me who and what I am. What I was, a forgotten memory. I do not remember that person I used to be. And it no longer matters, not anymore, not in a future where brother rises against brother, where the child strikes back at the father, and all the world falls into chaos over money, power and fear. There is much beauty in the world, despite all that threatens to rend us apart, and that's what keeps me alive, to see these things, touch them, admire them. But not with them, oh no, that would spoil their grace, their elegance. There is beauty in a great many things. Beauty in power, beauty in nature, beauty in compassion. There is also beauty in chaos, beauty in destruction, beauty in pain. All these are beautiful, just different kinds of them. And it unites us, drives us apart, and we let them, because we don't know better, can't see anything else beyond what we have, and I suppose it is alright, for we don't need them, those who cannot see. I don't need them, for I've always been alone. Even as a child, always alone, caught up in a fantasy, unfit to live and compete in the real world. But is it all real? We question that, every generation, every century, every eon, and yet there is still no answer. And perhaps there is no answer. I choose to be alone, because it strengthens me, keeps me sane, keeps me alive, helps me to breathe. Because if I let them in it hurts all too much, drowns me in empathy, love, compassion. And it's just so much easier not to feel, not to feel the touch of pity, taste the bitterness of jealousy, of betrayal. Not to leave myself vulnerable, but in my solitude I am all the more vulnerable to that game of lies and manipulation, both harder and easier to break, and so much more difficult to put back together, because there is nothing left to repair in that cruel game of truth and lies. And yet I'm still safe from it, because the hunter has not set me in its sights, saw no reason to, for in my solitude I became invisible to those who stalk the hunting grounds, with nothing to catch their eyes. And I'm grateful, for once, for that simple presence I have that draws little attention as long as I keep my mouth shut and my actions quiet. But I want them to break me, want someone to break me, leave me broken, hurt, vulnerable. Teach me what it means to let go, to feel, to be vulnerable again. Sometimes, pain can be an astonishingly good teacher, reminding us that we're human, agonising nerve by agonising nerve, the pain serving to remind us that we can feel, can breathe, can think, can be alive, that we're not just puppets, emotionless dolls going through the motions. Pain is real, and it is educational. Happiness is far too easily taken for granted, and thus less effective as a teacher. I want to break open that shell around me, or else I will die without ever having lived, yet I fear. Fear that leaving the shell would make me vulnerable, but truth is, is the egg not vulnerable as well? Questions, so many of them, yet can't be answered. Will not be answered. What is it then, that leads me back to this path again and again, where I flagellate myself, punish myself, torture and brutalise, all down that familiar path of lies and deceit, of tempting sin and leading into madness and chaos. And I love it and hate it because it is all too easy to lose myself in that vortex, all too easy to give up control over the dark half, and I hate it and hate it because it keeps me from love, life and sanity. But I keep going down that road again and again, willingly drowning myself in sin and tears of blood, drinking of the bitter brew of regret, delighting in and repudiated by the musky scent of guilt and hatred. Oh how I love to soak in these quagmire, leaping into the heart of the maelstrom, sticking a foot into quicksand, tempting fate, playing with dangerous stakes. And I stake it all out at the poker table, everything I have and more, always the usual stakes, never more, never less. The usual stakes, of sanity, of life, of future and happiness all rolled into one. I staked myself, because that is all I have left. In the end, in the end, the end, the end, all I have is myself and nothing else. And no one needs me, because I don't need them. I don't want to need them, so I keep pushing, playing that game. Like an elegant dance, back and forth, foils thrusting in succession, quick volleys and rapid ripostes, never ending, thrust to the heart for a point, and begin again. And isn't it all beautiful, the psychedelic colors wrought by sin and chaos and that delightful condition known as insanity. Abstract art for fools. And fool I am, for I play a mindless game with no prize, and no end in sight. I don't need some old, moldy book telling me that. I have always known, ever since I've begun to play. ANd I don't want the light, that redeeming light, to clean away the dirt over my grubby form. I rolled in the mud for that dirt, I needed it, a marker of my sins. I don't want to be clean, can't stand to be clean, because I feel so unworthy, and as all unworthy ones are, covered with muck and silt, outcast. I harbor no illusions of salvation, of a gentle, redeeming light. I harbor no hopes of rising from the ashes, no hopes of reclaiming glory---if it had ever been mine or there in the first place. I was fallen, am fallen, maybe had always been, never in a high place, living down in the lower castes, enviously looking up yet knowing that we could never reach. No angel, no devil, just a simple unwanted object displacing air. But it's all good, because I know. At least I know. And oh how I much don't want to. But it's all too late. You can't take knowledge away. It's too late for me, but not for the rest of you. Live, like you have never before. Live, because I can't. Live, so I can watch you, and hate you for it. Because I need to hate you, because the alternative is love, and I can't do that, not now, not forever. So please, live well and happily, so I can despise you. My sanity rests on it. Please?
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