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.

The Attic Must Be Haunted.

The carnal urges are a kick in the balls. Far flung from himself into another loving embrace, his desires leave him feeling like skin stretched over a rabid dog. Dubious, his thoughts wring like a towel suspended above steaming rocks in a sauna. A long forgotten bath. Movement over reeds under a dimlit bridge teeming with drunken parasites; proven to be kinship are the leases he has lost without right. As he lays dreaming amidst piers of surf covered in seafoam and pungent rot, a memory descends upon him like an abyssal spector. It was peanut butter. It was a ghoul, a wastrel, a vision, a loss, an apparition. It was something you could see through. The thing that left him feeling like he had grasped something gone, it was of these things. He gallops up to his feet from crouching and thinks that maybe there was another life flashing before his eyes. But he isn't dying. He isn't even sure he's mortal at this point. He falls back down again to lull across another second; latex stretched over a ragged frame. His bones are harbingers of reality tearing through a thin membrane. His flesh is afire with cross meaning, tossed amid branches of tantrums, trains stretching across an expanse leaving a man with nothing. His eyes dilate unto drops of sweat hanging off a brow that must be his own. So asunder and confusing, this existence, he tosses and turns again to try to shake this consciousness. No the chemicals won't let him rest. Or they may, but for a second. Because there's someone else in his mind trying to clean up the mess. It's not him. It will not be him. It can't be him. If it were him he'd have gotten it all together by now. He knows that the creaking boards making up the floor of the attic within his brain are stressed by obnoxious preoccupations that just won't stop pacing. They look at the clutter around them and know that everything around them is not to be cleaned. It is to be arranged in some haphazard manner, a manner quite akin to the rantings of a postman just finishing his thirtieth round. And so a kick to the balls, a drip of the fall, a love like a ball that just keeps rolling. On and on across a landscape he can't make out.

Recommendation: Get Better.

For a life free of personal stress: Clip nails with degree of vengeance, sanitize all surfaces while swearing under breath, lose self in motivational speaker upon soapbox, gear up for monster truck rally by perusing discount aisle, rank hygiene needs in order of recognition, team up with preacher to deliver sermon, give sensuous massage in park, care for lost soul with rubber gloves, binge upon pamphlets for mother-to-be, dine with president, reap but do not sow, feel like another, pair up delightful tastes, stroll through garden with parasol, slap gimp tastefully, oil up dancers with precision unseen, fill salt water tank with moving parts only to rust, go to pet store with glaring eyes, buy thoughtful present to forget, become fruitful in labors of sorrow, dance upon the shackles of neighbors, breach the surface, reach maximum tonage, meet cave dweller for discussion of strategy, discern between further action and protocol, leave nothing behind, do up the banister like it's new years, drone on through another tasteless highway, look up just in time to see shooting star, catch dwindling breeze upon brow, sew up hole with tears shining, devise prenuptial agreement in bathtub, divide possessions in half like magic trick, brew coffee with scorn for coworker, stand aside while procession lulls, locate bathroom while pissing ones self, sell off what made you do what you did, take action with sleeping mask on, kneel next to terminal illness with rose in hand, bruise while toning, gain whilst pain, draw up plan for extraditing loving bridal party, careen down alley with bottle in hand, move up the ladder to avoid impending doom, doll up face with gaudy lipstick, discover new use for plastic body, bag up parts to dispose of in various anonymous places, receive word from high commissioner, bill retainer for dubious stock, preen private investment with degree of sympathy, get up with wry smile. These, and other tips, can be found in the self-help guide: "Little Cherub Boy Lost for Words."