Burnin’ Daylight
Okay think positively now. This is just a mental hemorrhage after all. After it’s said and done, I guess there can only be one thing left. Let’s hope it’s solace.
There’s a bud of green dried plant life on my desk, and my arm is itching. I think the bugs are crawling out of the woodwork, but they’re smart sons of bitches. You can’t see them with the naked eye you see. I want to smoke the bud, to fill my lungs with its sticky, bitter-sweet aroma. It tastes like death, and I like it. There’s going to be a full moon tonight; there’s going to be a storm. The tide is high and I’m following suit. Care to guess what ill is born?
When I want to be cute, I like to believe that we have power over our reality. That we can induce meaning into every aspect of existence, to give things value, to make them of worth where before there was none. These things can be people, places, or objects. Twenty questions and you’ll never guess what I have in mind. I’ll give you a hint, it ain’t Tallahassee, It’s Wichita. These are the dog days and I’m a hound with a big nose. My mind is reeling, and I haven’t touched the greenery yet. Dear gwad! The bud is calling out to me. The crawlers are crawling again. The roaches are stacked end to end!
My fingers sweep across the keys like razor blades against a chiselled jaw. It’s magic time. I’m giving meaning to my little world. I’m shaking up a snow globe.
There’s a dark half in all of us, gwad willing. A thug, a bully, waiting to be loosed upon the scene, and it’s a loose scene, man. I’ve been there a few times. It isn’t pretty but it’s home. This is home too. I’ve hung my hat in more places than I can remember. It ain’t lonesome, out here on the steppes. It’s just quiet: solitary confinement of the soul, from everyone and everything. A chill touch and an icy stare, and I’m left cold and bare. I am redone. There’s a beating of the drums in my head, and there are half-naked jungle dancers in my heart. The blood boils. Am I this? Can it be? Dr. Frankenstein is me.
Where have all the children gone, I say! Experience quells innocence, don’t you know? And the righteous are the last to be idealistic about anything of any real importance. Don’t look at this in the right light. There is none. Be it as it may, there are other sides to every half, it’s true. It’s a constant struggle to see which one will win out. Then it’s all up to the psychopomp to take the loser away. Oh, Leave him your Pennies, your pieces of Cheese. He’ll be needing them soon enough. Hell hath no furry like The father’s scorn. it’s in me, and in you. Zombieland. The winner loses and the loser wins.
I hate to say this but the Scientologists are right. You can make a religion out of anything, and enough blind arseholes will institutionalize the damn thing. It’s enough to make one… Drunk n staggering through a blind alley, I retrieve the .38 from my rain coat. It’s soaked. There’s a good many souls falling like rain these days; the sky is blotted out by them during the dusk. And at night they are simply a grey wash, an amorphous skin over all the world. On the other side… that’s where we find the solution. And we can never have it – must never have it. I raise the slugger high, squeeze, and hear click. Nothing. I point it down the alley towards the street entrance. Maybe some unexpected soul will walk by… Click. At this point, the bullets would do more damage in a box of cereal. I put the gun to my temple hoping maybe, chance is with me.
Lucky charms can’t save you now, old boy. The time is nigh. There are crowds to please, y’know? Sometimes the dark half just has to be unleashed rather than destroyed; another voice to be heard over the din. Onlookers, pedestrians, slack jawed yokels. A little bit of morbid curiosity never hurt anyone. There you have it, I’ve convinced myself. Smoke time. Edit. Break. Recommencing phase two. Stellar groove, man. You’re not a has-been if you never was, right? Wrong. We’re all has beens. I’m just hoping baby, I’m not going too insane. Too much experimentation and too few solutions. The myriad hypotheses of an idle mind. Background Chatter.
Whether I like it or not, it’s time I let the beast out once and for all. Straighten some of this mess out with the tact of an army drill sargent. Mow the lawn, shave that beard. Tomorrow’s another shitter, I hear. All you saints and sinners stand up. Musical chairs. Daddy’s gonna make you dance. So grab your partner and do-see-dough. There’s a hurricane in the air and we all have to be paired off before it hits. I’m going to be the Champion of the world, I sure will. I only wish I had a golden tuxedo. Leave a shinny corpse. Keep your allans on, I’ll think of something. Ain’t nothing else better to do standing in the rain on a Monday night. Or Tuesday morning. Trust me I’ll find one. Black smoke fills my lungs, my brain ignites. Trust me.
There’s a memory out there for all of us. Once so precious, and one so valuable. When that’s lost, then there’s nothing left. We didn’t ask to follow. But there was never any chance of turning back for us anyways, and the next 3,000 days are going to be a real bitch. This memory is what keeps us sane, I think. In spite of everything, there was something magical about the whole deal. Out-of-Past experience. And you liked it. Hell, I liked it.
If memory serves there was a cherry pie, steaming hot on the sun soaked sill. The aroma… well, it was divine. A mother’s caress, a father’s wink. family. A blanket of belonging. I’ll take the wise advice of a rhetorical old man, ‘don’t bother with the hard stuff; we all get sorted out in good time.’ That’s the value we should assign; an appreciation for the little things. The trivialities. I suppose we are cursed and blessed. If there’s one thing I’ll always miss, it’s the family dinners.
Let’s hope that memory remains with us unto our graves.
Meaning, I better savour every last one. The world I know… My known world, may not be there forever. Look at me! Now I’m peeking into the snow globe.
Click
No comments:
Post a Comment