Feeling, today, the mediocrities of my life press down hard on me, crushed flakes of butterfly between pages of leatherbound. Feeling, today, like I am boring and predictable, that is, the fate expected for everyone, except for me. See how deep my ego runs? At least I’m honest about it? Or am I? Don’t believe everything I write. I sure don’t.
In the shadow of a man, in the shadow of a tower, in the shadow of a misunderstanding. Trying to be sincere, but not too sincere, you know? I know that would only push you away. Trying to be cool, but not too cool, you know? I know that would only pull you in and I shudder to think at the things you could see, at such close distance. The self-pity like a twinkle in my eye.
Always on my own, and always fighting with myself. Lying in bed, wounding the same place over and over. Break a bone and then break it again, because it’s easier the second time. Cross a line and watch it blur to nothing. Do I have a body, or only its iterations, shaking to life every half past eight and bleeding out at four in the morning, forty minutes before the pink light, that first filter. Slouching to the breakfast table to see your letter against the butter knife. Oh, please invite me to dine so I can shudder with the pleasure of rejecting your offer. Rejection runs deep in me. Every individual layer of blood and tissue, I have already examined threefold, in search of the tendernesses of the spirit. Everything I’m not satisfied with, I chuck out; the pile could rival Mount Olympus. I see you run to try to save the pieces. I reject you, and them, again. It’s a futile quest. The more you insist, the bigger the thrill from pushing you away. Laws of physics, baby. You throw up your hands. You think only a higher power could get through to me. But there is nothing any god could grant me that would restore dignity to the flesh that I myself have scrapped for the fire.
All this anger but if you met me, you’d find me boring. You’d see me smile like a child and see nothing or, worse still, see everything. I look up “how to get a powerful kick,” over and over, in different variations, fishing for another result. Opening the fridge and summoning only my own purpling head on a bed of lettuce and radishes.
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