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.