Monday, February 28, 2011

Don't This Look Like the Dark?


"I'll trade me for him." This proposition was a lot easier to say than to carry out. Of course, he was a human being, by all logical accounts, spiritual, fanatical, or otherwise, and the subject he was referring to was a mound of dirt exposed to the sun by his spade. His sharp wit was no where to be seen, creeping around the outskirts of the weed choked yard, slamming shut dormant dresser drawers and keeping still the leaves upon the trees. It was invisible. But that wasn't the issue. The person whom he spoke to was. This "person" was the puff of smoke refracting the business of light around his face, the aura loosening the feeling that the world was real, the milky lense slowly enclosing over his eyes day by day. This person was himself taken for a ride. He was actually asking, "May I please have some semblence of reality returned to me." And as per usual, asking for a rendezvous with normalcy brings only further skewing of what is concrete. For this pile of dirt was not your everyday pile. It was piled high like a pile should be. It was piling upon itself as he spoke and he knew that piles that pile upon their own pile never pale in comparison to other piles. He was sure that this pile, in particular, was piled like oblivion. It was piled with dimness, prejudice, trimmings, genocide, several shades of Michael Jordan, idolatry, mixed feelings, centiennial blues, perennial hues, jurisdictional clues, and denizens of his psyche that had been cast out into the dark. But what comes after the dark? That's what he would find out, if only his alter ego would let him. This thing that is but one side of himself can decide to loosen its grip and let him become all sides of the prism. The fractyl that grew inside his cluttered backyard, inside the hole he had just dug, would prove to be what he was; if only the loss within his soul would let him. The question sprung from his lips and hung like a scarecrow...his spirited wit stole out into the alleyway with a glitter for a grin, the mound sweltered in the heat of a continent, and he lingered there for an answer. Gone were his lovers, check. Gone were his brothers, check. Gone were his covers, check. Gone were his proofs, check. Gone were his lessors, check. All was well, nothing kept undone, proven was his damage, drained were his possibilities. The wit came back and so did the sunshine. He wasn't as drawn out as he thought when the question was answered.

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