With a Capital B

Ladies and Gentlemen! Boys and Girls! Friends, workers, soldiers and sluts: welcome and bear with me. Bare it all with me, will you? I will promise you the same, but only if you promise to play the game.

Words were meant to be read.

There is no real fiction. Everything came from someone’s mind, and it is no less real than any other lie. So take your time. Really taste every rhythm and every rhyme, because somewhere, buried deep down and right in front is a part of the real me. Every letter that I compose cannot help but be a doorway to who I am. An invitation that I hope you’ll accept. Because this is me.

But when you’re done, read this to someone else. That's the game.

Because there really is nothing quite like Being.

Whisper, shout, and let your soul out. Make it yours. It can be to your roommate, your lover, your co-worker, your mother, or your brother. A stranger, even. It can be in person on the couch, or perhaps over the phone. Over coffee or candles. But copy and pasting just won’t do: it has to be you. They’ll probably think it’s corny to start with. You probably will too. But be brave, and don’t hide; try to look them in the eye.

And don’t worry, I won’t make you say “slut”. If you want, you can start right here...

...Because this is me.

I am a leader, I utter every syllable with the utmost precision. I deliver each and every line.
I am a slave, bound to provide in monotone. Meaning is carried but never meant.
I am a vampire, suggestive and sublime. Every word is a seduction.
I am a ghost, strange and surreal. Nothing to touch, nothing to feel.
I am a woman, wearing a mask. I speak with a wayward glance and the softest touch.
I am a man, building a work. I’ll tell you how it is.

I am. I am.

Let us be gods. Let us cast aside our self-centered shyness. There is no need for it here. Our lives can produce and take both pleasure and pain. Our hearts can devote and pollute, grow cold and flame. Our hope invents heavens, our fears invent hells. So let us throw away foolish notions of impotency. To the abyss with fate and chance! Everything is only as we are. We are not only as everything is. We can change the world with a single word.

What is yours?

What is mine?

Let me tell you a secret.

I have loved. I mean really loved. That’s it. That’s the secret. I’ve said “I love you.” I meant it too. Clichés mattered to me. I gave myself away. I have longed to control time so that I could pause a moment forever. When I love, I feel real.

I also adore lust. Wild, raw, make you laugh, clothes on the floor, zest for life, lust. Can’t help it. Sometimes I deny it, sometimes I don’t. But privately, I think it’s fantastic. Please don’t tell anyone. It’s kind of embarrassing.

There’s more. I’ve also hated. I have loathed, secretly, other human beings. You may have thought so, and I’ve almost certainly given it away at some point. But I doubt you know the depths of what I’ve felt. Blind. Fucking. Rage.

I’ve suffered. I’ve lain awake far longer than I should have, when everyone else in the world was sleeping. You know? That quiet time when there are others around and they actually are all sleeping and the whole place is eerily silent. I’ve been utterly alone and wished that it would just end.

There was also this one time when I saw something and thought of someone else I knew. Maybe they felt alone too.

I’ve cried.

I’ve laughed too. Laughed so hard that my side actually hurt. No one smiles like I smile. People notice my laugh.

I have longed and hoped and dreamt and moped. I’ve given up and given in and given out. I don’t want to say I’m amazing, but I am.

My word is the heaven above and the earth below. My word moves mountains, and it cradles that little bit of fluff that sometimes floats in the wind. So let us create something from nothing. I mean it. Today. Right now. Every single moment is an opportunity for us to take our life into our own hands. Every passing whim is ours to breathe life into. Every thought is a currency to be spent, saved, wasted or invested as is our want. Not one word is worthless.

Our inventions are floundering. People wonder how we got here. They create excuses and examples. They wait for opportunity and weave complicated designs from simple patterns. They search outside and reject their insides. We have forgotten where power came from. We have given up our voice in exchange for opinions.

But this is nothing other than meaning. This is everything.

There are no laws. There is no corporate mandate. There is no such thing as dating or marriage. There are no rules of etiquette or absolute values for preference. There is no democracy, no religion, no equality. No conspiracy, agenda or master plan. There is no upper, middle, or lower class. No one has and no one has-not. There is no ownership. There is nothing normal, and nothing strange. These are distractions. These are our substitutes. Creations fallen from grace.

There is only you and me. When you really read what I write, and when you really hear what I say, then we are. And then we can do anything.

We can save the world with three magical words. We can destroy it with consuming, consoling anger. We can forsake it for a play-date, or we can silently yearn for it with all our hearts. Because when you do, you do it to me. And that’s it. When I do, I do it to you. And that is all.

We can make a comedy of existence, and just be outrageously goofy. We can be thoughtful or cute or diligent or serious or removed or ambitious or sexy. We can walk with truth and devoted care for others, or we can wrap ourselves in a design of our own making. Because it’s just us in the beginning and just us in the end. You and I. Alpha and Omega.

We are humanity.

This is me.

Divination

Oh shit. You mean I can't hide behind pretty words anymore?

I still could, I suppose. The post that you're reading right now could be about the City, and Lilith, and mythology, and the grotesque, with a bit of The Wasteland thrown in for good measure - but it would seem disingenuous after Zach's post.

I have a feeling there will be no magic to this post. I feel deflated – I read ‘The Mirror and the Image’, and I thought, that’s really cool, maybe I’ll try something like that, and I wrote the fist line - Oh shit. You mean I can't hide behind pretty words anymore? – and that was it. I couldn’t think of anything else. I have no story this week. Nothing pretty, nothing grotesque.

Usually an image comes to me, born from Zach’s post, and then another image, and a line after that; soon I start writing, and there they are, the words and words and words, unfurling like a bright red ribbon behind me, like a fever dream, like the smoke from a cigarette swirling seductively, all around me. Soon enough, I hear a song or an entire album that seems to fit the mood, listen to that on repeat while I write, until it’s done and the words have all found me. I often do research – read up on church design or the Furies, find the lyrics and poetry I might want to reference, search Google for a picture of whatever it is I’m struggling to describe. I read it over a second and third time to make sure I’ve said what I wanted to say, that all the images and allusions are in place - not to mention the commas and apostrophes.

I love the process, and I love how it affects me – it’s like a drug. I feel alive and I feel like I’m full to bursting with colors – a starburst of light. I lose my sense of self to it; I am made of words and the words are made of me, and I drink from the deep cool well of the collective unconscious. I am pure light when I write, and when the words find me I am beautiful. When I’m writing and the words are all that’s left of me, I have access to all of human history; I drink from the well and I drink the blood of oracles.

I can’t do drugs anymore, so it’s nice that I’ve found a cheap substitute. Plus I can function afterwards, and there aren’t any nasty side affects.

There are a couple of lines in ‘The Mirror and the Image’ that I loved:

I wish I could convey to the readers the incredible transparency in that last paragraph. I actually could feel myself floating as I wrote it, much like I always do when I’m talking to you.

He’s talking about God, but he could just as easily be talking about the Process. Could be they’re one and the same, actually.

I stopped believing in God about a year ago. I read The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, and it solidified a lot of things I had been struggling with, and it just…clicked, I guess. All the puzzle pieces snapped together, and that was it. I saw the picture clearly; I saw the world; I saw the truth. I was done with God. It felt amazing. Still does. I was free. Still am.

I think I’ll be cheap and quote here from a piece I wrote back then, called ‘Dear God (A Monologue)’:

Dear god, I think I may be an atheist. I think I may be ready to take a huge leap into the unknown. Into a place where there is no celestial guidance, only the wonders of nature and science and measurable facts. There is still love and transcendence and meaning, mind you. But you're not there, and the heavenly choir is silenced, and most of human history is mistaken in its belief, but it doesn't matter. Because truth – and facing the truth that you will never be found – is beauty, and beauty is truth, and that is all.

The last line of the piece is ‘Good-bye’.

I thought that last word – that sad, final ringing of the bell – would stay with me always, and haunt me at night. But it hasn’t. That’s the thing, that’s what makes me smile and that’s what tells me I that I found the truth – it doesn’t hurt at all.

When I stopped believing in God, I stopped talking to Him. I knew that if I vacillated, and spoke to him, privately, then it would be like I was holding onto a shameful secret, and I would never know truth. So I let go of him – and now I think it’s time to stop capitalizing him, and start capitalizing Truth – completely. I haven’t spoken to god since then, not even in my weakest moments, not even those times when life has hurt so badly I thought I wouldn’t make it through the night. What I have done, though, is write.

There’s a lovely symmetry to it, don’t you think? I stopped talking to my imaginary friend, and started talking to the world. I found the Process, which is transcendent – and not unlike the experience mystics describe when they’ve met god. Which, incidentally, is not unlike the way I felt the first time I smoked pot. I have the Process, which I think is the most honest of all these experiences. It’s a kind of birth, and it’s painful and joyous and exhausting in equal measures. It’s bloody and long and splits the soul open, but the end result – a few words on the computer screen, a bit of telepathy from me to you, whoever you may be – is a beautiful mystery, a sublime experience, a truly mystical thing.

I seek pleasure. I seek the nerves under your skin.
The narrow archway; the layers; the scroll of ancient lettuce.
We worship the flaw, the belly, the belly,
the mole on the belly of an exquisite whore.
He spared the child and spoiled the rod.
I have not sold myself to God.

from ‘Babelogue’, by Patti Smith

The Mirror and the Image

Well. Here we are again.

It’s Zach, by the way. I know, obviously, that you would know that. By definition, really. But it’s necessary this time. Not for you. For everyone else. You see, as you also know, I’m doing this thing with Leah – a blog project. We’re supposed to alternate posts each week, and be inspired by the post prior. Last Friday she wrote a post about a guy in a long black coat, who kind of reminds me of me – the me on the inside. Anyways, in this post, the man goes into a church, in a story about his struggle with God and Truth and all that other mother-jazz, as Franky would say. It got me thinking, about you.

I haven’t spoken with you in quite some time. It’s been a while. Pride got in the way, for one. Heh. Yeah, the irony doesn’t escape me. It just makes me smile.

It’s because, of course, I don’t really believe you exist. I’m an atheist... or at least, I really like the label. I like it when people take one look at me and say “oh yeah, he’s a hardcore atheist.” I like to be the approachable one with the strong arguments for atheism. And what’s more, I have them. I believe them. Sooooooo that kind of makes me feel like I’m betraying myself when I talk to you. Silly, I know. But still. We’re only human, right?

Let’s get into it, shall we? I’ve heard it said by believers that it doesn’t make sense to talk to something or someone that you claim you don’t believe in. I mean, if I honestly didn’t believe you existed, then how can I talk to you? And if I reply with “well, I don’t think I’m talking to the Christian God as philosophically defined, but I am talking to something, some kind of entity” then they still win. I’m still lying about being an atheist.

Heh. What games we play. Don’t you ever get bored of them?

Of course, if I honestly don’t believe there’s anything, then I’m psychotic – talking to imaginary beings. It would make as much sense to talk to Deadrious, or Tekkorin, or Meynovich, or any other D&D character.

But I was thinking about it in the shower, as you know I often do, and I think I really do prefer the latter. You’re a part of me. You are that strange event horizon between the world as it is and the world as I perceive it to be, personified. Is that the right word? Event horizon? I think Locke had a name for it to, in his epistemological theories.

It’s strange, writing to you instead of just talking out loud like I always do. Like proper “prayer”. It’s different.

Anyways. Made in your image. You’re made in mine. It works both ways, which works. Of course, it must. I always talk with Cody about the “completeness” of a picture that Christianity paints, when given its proper dues. It’s beautiful really. And if I’m to assert a worldview of atheism that’s rational, my picture must be just as complete, if not moreso. Of course, it is – because all of the completeness that Christianity has, atheism piggy-backs off of. Like I also always say, disbelieving in the objective existence of You doesn’t mean sweeping all of Christianity, or more properly, all of faith, under the rug. It means that there is a better, alternate explanation for all of it, including the incredible human spirit and devotion and sacrifice and love that’s involved. I’ve gotta say – an atheist’s portrait of you is pretty fucking amazing.

When we’re not being pig-headed and arrogant, of course.

If Micheal Buble can write a new hit song, in which he’s talking to a girl he hasn’t met yet, I think I can talk to you and share it with others. He’s making millions off of his imaginary girlfriend – his personified object of devotion. A written post of a prayer to God – a personified world – isn’t that much worse.

It’s just struck me. It’s the realness. It’s the realness of it that’s scary. See, when I imagine writing a speech to the world, it’s once removed from me. But when I’m talking to God, written or otherwise, objectively existent or subjectively personified, it’s talking to the most intimate parts of me. I’m naked here. I’m, as Leah might put it, radically honest with myself. I can’t say “my friend” here, like I do with all of my other writing. What I mean is, I can let my writing reveal parts of me. I can write intimate thoughts, fears, passions. But I don’t name names. It’s a writing device that I enjoy. But when I’m talking to that ethereal existence – God - I’m talking to (and with) that intimate part of me. And there are no writing devices there. There are only names. There is no Fear, capital ‘f’. There is just fear of not finding a job. There is no Sorrow that is some abstract feeling, dolled up with pretty words. There is simply the sorrow of wanting to be held by a woman. There is just me.

It’s just comfy. There’s really no more to it than that. I’m an atheist. I don’t believe that you actually exist. But it’s comforting to talk to you. That’s it. That’s enough.

I wish I could convey to the readers the incredible transparency in that last paragraph. I actually could feel myself floating as I wrote it, much like I always do when I’m talking to you.

Remember that night on Kate’s balcony a few years ago? I wrote about it the other day. I’ll never forget it. I remember how wide Katherine’s eyes grew when we read a passage from the bible about your greatness and then the thunder outside practically shook the house. Man, did it ever rain that night. Do you remember my concern those days? Of course you do. I was so passionate. So driven to get my own mind under control. And I was really upset that I couldn’t cry. That’s what I was thinking when I went out to the balcony. As it began to rain, I felt like it was unfair that I couldn’t cry, and yet the whole fucking world was crying. But then it kind of felt like you were crying for me. Those tears were kind of for me and by me at the same time. I don’t know. Point is, I don’t forget that moment.

That’s what we do, right? You and I? We reminisce, and we dance.

Of course, you and I dance like partners in crime. Real dancing I do with the Muse, and She’s a she. A woman is much better at those sorts of things. Plus, I like chasing girls. I don’t give a shit about men, really. The three of us make quite the holy trinity. Hell hath no fury, right?

We all need a little fury in our lives.

I need a little fury in my life. A little kick. That’s why I turn to wind and rain more than sunrises and sunsets, I suppose. People often point to sunsets and say “that’s why I believe in God.” I always find it a little quaint. I see what they’re getting at, but it’s a little far off the mark. You’ve got to look in people’s eyes to really see where and why you exist. I hate looking at myself in the mirror. Still do.

I won’t lie to you. I’d like to talk about how I’m going to roll up my sleeves, and how you and I are going to team up and do some real damage in the future. I’d love to talk to you like I write, full of hope and ambition. But I can’t promise that, so I can’t say that. Realistically, you’ve always been the one with the road map, not me.

We’re a pretty unique team, you and I. I hope you know where we’re going.

Weather’s been great lately. Thanks.

I’ll talk to you later.

Dear Lord,
So far today I've done all right. I haven't gossiped, I haven't lost my temper, I haven't been greedy, grumpy, nasty, selfish, or very indulgent. I'm very grateful for that. But in a few minutes, Lord, I'm going to get out of bed, and from then on, I'm going to need a lot more help.
Amen.

- Morning prayer I saw at my friend’s house.

The Man in the Long Black Coat

Part One

There is a church on the Borderlands, before the Edge, before the rustling black where the City ends and the Unknown begins. Unless you have a very good reason (and there are few Very Good Reasons), it is advised that you do not visit this church. Only the very foolish - and less often, the very brave – have even considered making the pilgrimage.

The Man in the Long Black Coat walks towards the church. His coat is dusty. Smoke coils, serpentine, from the cigarette in his mouth. His feet are bare. He leaves bloody tracks in the rocks and dirt; he steps on the small bones of birds and things that have never been birds as we know it, as he walks the path to the church.

The chirping of crickets. Rustling in the trees. Yellow eyes, steady, still, watching him.

He sees none of this. Only the church.

It is a small building, simple and grey, made of stone. Two windows in the front, more along the sides. The front door is wooden, painted red, and decorated with a symbol the Man knows all too well: a triangle with an upside-down cross inside it. The symbol appears to have been burnt into the wood. The faint smell of smoke and charcoal.

The Man in the Long Black Coat does not pause at the door, nor does he knock. He turns the heavy handle and walks inside. Bloody footprints on the steps, on the threshold, and now along the aisle he walks.

A line of pews on either side of him, dark wood and a rough stone floor. Narrow windows lining each wall, so dusty no light shines in; no matter. At the end of the aisle, a pulpit, raised slightly on a block of crumbling stone, and a simple wooden lectern. Again, the symbol, this time carved into the lectern (one imagines a primitive knife in a shaky, determined hand), this time red, as if the wood itself bled as it was cut.

There are other things carved into the dais, stranger things, things with yellow eyes and black fur, bristling backs and claws curving out of misshapen paws.

The Man expected all this.

At the pulpit now, he grips the lectern and shakes it, hard.

Where are you?

He doesn’t speak; his thoughts are the sound of birds rising and taking flight. The rustle of dry feathers against the air.

Show yourself. I know you’re here.

Yellow eyes, looking through the narrow windows.

You did this to me.

A low growl. Something that might be laughter. Something that is most definitely a warning.

Part Two

There is a park in the North end of the City, called, with smirking irony by its creators, Edenwood. Here the trees are tall. Here the trees are, in fact, fantastic. Purple, pink, blue; heart and diamond-shaped flowers, and succulent fuchsia fruit that bursts at the slightest touch. The wind tastes like cherry blossoms, and the flowers sing lullabies.

Alice, in her desperate attempts to escape Mr Dodgson, could not have imagined a sweeter place.

You would do well to avoid this place.

Only the very foolish - and less often, the very brave – have made the pilgrimage.

There is a pool in the middle of Edenwood, where the mer-people live. The Man in the Long Black Coat approaches the pool, picking his way across the soft grass. The footprints he leaves behind soon turn to red glass, and twinkle in the sun. A hundred ruby slippers in his wake.

The Man’s head hums as he approaches the pool. There could be a hive of bees in his head, the backs of his eyes sting so.

At the edge of the pool, a ladder leads down into the algae-depths.

Nice touch.

The man smiles, and the bees drip their honey down the back of his throat.

The skin of the water is thick, oily – marvelous rainbows swirling. Every shade of green you can imagine, and a few you can’t. Nothing breaks the surface, but the man thinks he sees something down there - a fin, maybe, a tentacle or two?

I must speak to you.

His mouth does not move, but the bees press against his lips, blindly searching for a way out.

I know you can fix this. I know you can take this away.

A bee finds its way out his left ear, nibbling at his cochlea as it leaves.

This won’t work. You cannot scare me. I’ve seen enough. I know too much.

The bees laugh, in the chittering ways of bees. They sting the backs of his eyes, and his eyes drip yellow tears. They escape out his nose, now, and their tiny feet leave tiny cuts and he bleeds tiny drops of stinging nectar.

The water is still. Not even the incessant whirl of bees disturbs it.

You cannot scare me. I know too much.

Part Three

Eventually, you will find yourself in the very heart of the City, at a building that reaches to the sky, and, quite possibly, much further. The name of the building does not concern us, although it can be found easily in other documents, if one cares to look. The beating, swelling, bloody heart of the City.

The Man has travelled long and hard to get here. He has left a thousand bloody footprints and cigarettes butts in his wake. His coat is dusty, still. The hungry, cat-sized ravens that line the Borderlands considered following him, for a time, but thought better of it. Best to let him be, they said, in the secret language of ravens.

You’re fucking right you better let me be, the man had replied.

The ravens bristled, and ducked their shiny black heads.

It takes a lot to startle a raven.

Now the Man has arrived where we are, at the building in the heart of the City. He takes a last deep drag, and grinds his cigarette out with the heel of his bloody foot. The revolving doors open for him; they spin him into the lobby. He enters the elevator, and presses a series of buttons that we will not record here.

He leaves the elevator, and steps onto a floor lined in black and white tiles. Though, if he looks closely, the tiles change color and shape quite magnificently. Yes, it’s a trick - but a lovely one nonetheless. There doesn’t seem to be any blood left for his feet to shed. The tiles remain clean and colorful, and he walks to the door that he knows to be the right one, although the hallway is lined with doors.

He is a foolish man, and a brave one at that.

He opens the dor, and is greeted by a small girl, blond and pony-tailed, wearing a blue and white gingham dress. She smiles up at him with gap-toothed anticipation.

‘He’s here!’ she shouts back into the room, and opens the door for him. ‘We’ve been waiting for you!’ she explains. ‘We’ve been waiting a long time for you.’

‘Hush, child’, a warm voice says from inside. ‘Let him in first. Let him speak.’

The Man walks into the room.

Three chairs arranged around a red-brick fireplace, the fire lit and casting shadows on the walls. Strange shadow-play; shifting figures like dogs crouching, pouncing, loping. A porcelain cat on the mantel, its tail flicking stiffly left to right, a picture of a family in an ornate gold frame, their faces dissolving and re-forming, melting and hardening. A clock; instead of numbers, tiny figures twisted into twelve obscene positions.

The first chair is empty. The Man assumes that it belongs to the little girl, now wearing a ringmaster’s suit, waving a small baton, and tugging at the sleeve of his coat.

‘You look sad. Got the tombstone blues, do you?’ she asks, giggling.

The Man is not distracted.

A woman sits in the second chair. Her brown hair is streaked with silver, and her hands are liver-spotted, but her eyes are bright. She holds a rotting, green-skinned baby in her arms and is stroking its bald head. Pieces of skin come off where she touches it, and she pats them back into place. She smiles at him, warmly.

The girl is tugging at his sleeve, still. ‘Look what I can do!’ she says, and when he looks down her hair has turned into hundreds of thin green snakes, snapping their tongues at him and waving sinuously.

‘Pay her no mind’, the woman in the third chair says, turning her head towards him. She is almost a twin to the baby in the second woman’s arms, only someone has taken a knife to her eyes, and in their place are only criss-crossed scars, a once-pink puckering gone grey with age.

Take this away from me.

‘You know we can’t do that, my dear’ the second woman says sweetly. Her thumb sinks into the baby’s eye.

‘That’s not how it works at all!’ the little girl says. ‘You went to a bad place and now you’re a bad man!’ she sing-songs. She has turned into a small ocelot, now; she jumps onto the Man’s shoulders and nips at his ears with her sharp little teeth.

I can’t do it. I can’t. The things I’ve seen. The things I know.

‘It’s nothing really, dear. It’s nothing that will destroy you, not if you don’t let it,’ says the third woman. Shadows from the fire scuttle across her skin.

You can’t take it away.

‘No, we can’t.’ And now the three voices are melting into one, first second and third, young not-young and old, maid mother and crone, one single voice swirling around the room and into his head. ‘This is your story, lovely one. You have to keep telling it. And now you have to go. You don’t belong here.’

I have to go.

Part Four

We all hate the Truth. We are bad at it. We do it all wrong.

The dogs know the Truth of God; the mer-people know the Truth of Love; the Ladies know the Truth of Stories. The Man in the Long Black Coat knows all this, and more.

Too much, but not enough.

‘Preacher was a talkin', there's a sermon he gave, He said every man's conscience is vile and depraved, You cannot depend on it to be your guide When it's you who must keep it satisfied.’

from ‘The Man in the Long Black Coat’, Bob Dylan

Nightmares

There was a ferocious and malicious laughter inside him. It was, in truth, impotent.

There were tears, deep and large. The rain envied them, for they never fell. They stayed exactly where they were.

He mourned the found more than the lost. His knees were raw with worship.

There was Love towards the empty. An eternal embrace for the wind. With arms wide.

He hated the prophets. Hated them.

The will to power was broken. The meek had inherited the earth. The world stood paralyzed in revelation.

Everyone had that fake wisdom inside them. They shared with zeal to make it real.

Sticks and stones would break bones. Words would never wound. Silence bulldozed eternity.

Touches were forgotten. Forgotten touches were remembered.

Cold fusion was impossible. A pipe dream warmed thousands. Millions were disappointed.

The train was late. Again.

A series of hopes and smiles grew in the garden. For them, there was a season. They made for great bouquets.

Connections were left to the competent. Qualifications were minimal.

Leading onward was the mission. One foot in front of the other. Focus was the eyesight of the blind.

His job never noticed. They never cared.

The dark clouds withered. Their flesh called for carnivores. There was never a shortage.

His life was illusion. The magician’s hat was empty.

A sentence for every sin. A chuckle for every memory. The devil doesn’t mind his own mockery.

There should have been more. Beauty was the promise of old loves.

If only there were meaning.


I don’t know why it rained that day. I don’t know a lot of things, really. I have always had faith that the world would continue on as it always had. It would provide with what it needed to provide, would take what it would need to take, and when it was done, would cease being personified. But that rain was well timed.

There was thunder and lightning too. The house shook and my friends were wide eyed. I spent my time on the balcony. No one joined me. I was alone. God was my greatest conquest. And the sheets of liquid sparkled in the darkness.

If I was to drown, I would want it to be in the rain. The clamour of unequivocal nature muting the lunacy of your world. I would want to be blinded from your surroundings, and be numbed to your touch. A man should drown standing up, in a lake that touches the sky. He should be able to laugh at his own irony and feel his knees buckle.

My irony is vast. My hypocrisy is self-evident. It is by far enough to drown in. You hear me now, so trust me as you always have. You will never be close to me. No one ever will.

I’m a liar. A cheat. And I don’t give a shit. I don’t actually care about you. I never have and I never will. The words I gave you? They weren’t real. Facsimiles of dreams that I heard once. Nothing more. Listen to that carefully in your mind: Nothing more.

I have perfected the ability to look you in the eye and tell you your truth. I can tell you that your hair is nice. I can tell you why. I can say, in the most realistic of tones, “You are a credit to humanity and a downright decent human being, and I can prove it.” I imagine a compliment like a knife. All I have to do is strike the heart, and the rest will bleed out to the open air. I can make you feel like you fucking matter.

It’s a joke, really. You are nothing more than a fantastic one-liner in my life.


The Truth stood ready. Forever was it beyond the grasp of man.

Battles called the weary to rejoice. The dull is only paradise between fights. The sisters were right.

He pushes and he screams. He always dares to dream.

A thousand flashlights dim the dawn. The sun light’s up shades of grey. It’s always brighter with the blinds down.

He lived in empty clichés and full coffee shops. One day at a time.

Maps unravel with red arrows and white letters. Legends are clear. “You are here.”

The funeral was nice. He wore black.

Principle of Non-Contradiction. A law of logic. Emotion scoffs.

The mirror dripped. It was made with liquid judgement.

A girl once found fancy through the looking glass. A convenient fantasy. It was broken before it began.

A thousand moments would save his life. A thousand lifetimes could not save the moment.

Comedy and Tragedy entertain the masses. Ugly men deliver perfect lines. Shakespeare played a better Jesus.

Today was not one green light. His teachers lied.

Melodies sweeten the air. Artifice makes nature’s new perfume. The birds cannot compete.

He always went alone. It was never enough.

Starving children still laugh. Carefree adults still worry. Liars still love.

He had perfect potential. He preserved it.

Time is a measurement of change. For everything there is an ebb and flow. Immortality is to suffer indefinitely.

Nothing moved him like the thought of relief. It felt like nothing.

Death without significance.