Happy New Fears

The ice is melting below my feet.

I still can't get well but that is to be expected.

Work is still terrifying. It's true I looked into the jaws of death last year at this time and the very most unexpected happened. And it's true I have lined up a way forward for the time being. But nothing dooms me like this "success". What would life have been had I not run away? I'm sure that's the source of my black dreams.

Life is beyond bleak. I must save the world in order to have meaning. The world cannot be saved. Can I save me in times like these? Money could give me a half-life. I need a whole life. I hate being alone.

Drudgery is for certain. Work breaks my heart, sucks the life out of my soul. I can't create for a living because I have no courage. Of course, I don't really know anything but what I guess.

I really miss girls. Debby was a whore. She betrayed love too. I'm the only person in the world she can tell that to. I'm also the last person in the world she'd ever talk to or believe she can talk to. But she whored herself out way better than I ever did. That makes me feel both proud and guilty.

Where is out? If I get the cash I need, what then? I can never get enough. Right now it's sleep first and ask questions later. But I need the right now money at the very least for that, who am I kidding? I pretend to be above it but it keeps me up at night.

I'm tired of the lying. But can the truth feed me? Maybe if I were not in my crippled state it could. How could I ever talk to Emily again?

Let me sleep in 2018. That would be victory.

Under A Rock

Everything I do
I do
For no reason

Every breath I take
I take
Without breathin'

Every time I feel
I feel
Empty greivin'

Cold ice-olation
Mildew
Beneath the rock

My only friend
The End
Departing death

A life ruined
In shame
Runs from the sane

Heart beats alone
Turns stone
Like rock above

Wishing it were over
No hope
Without a hand

No recovery
Sans fear
Of discovery

Claw reaches out
Steals life
From gods in the light

The creep underneath
Rotting
Conservatively

Never can get above
Starving
To having love.

So This Is Shitmas

Ho ! HO! ho!

i've been successful but am less enthused than ever. not real success, of course, just in lying. logistically, i need to lie to get by. i have maneuvered myself into position to do that. yippee. without death's promise of escape i'm more dead than ever, just trudging through the snow, going nowhere. i cannot defeat the money monster straight up. i can only defeat it as a byproduct of doing something i want.

and yet i am forced to grapple with it in losing battle as options of love are not open to me. the life force is draining out of me. it's like eating gruel day after day after day. what's there to give a shit about? always pretending. the man who dutifully shows up to work one day and blows his brains out. it's not then that he died.

how much have i cheated myself? a poor man doesn't make an offer on a ferrari. he believes he has nothing to offer. whether he does or doesn't, he feels deceived in each case.

so tired of this plate spinning. i want to get away. that takes funding i can't get. the whore bitch got her funding. i didn't get mine. irony is, hers doesn't mean anything unless shes uses it to help me. that's really fucking funny. she thinks she'll die if she helps me but truth is other way around. she can't even say my name. frozen in fear.

did i damage emily? i don't know what to think. she only wanted to be pen-pals. but i wanted to be friends. why would she care about someone she doesn't want to be physical friends with? how important could i be? i always thought of her as a long lost friend i finally met. how angry with me is she?

next year doesn't look good. bluffed my way through this one. i have to get these chains off me but have no say in that. i shall ask for the wisdom to do so because i am clearly lacking in that. then i can rest.

but i'd be resting in the middle of a desert, alone and empty as far as the eye can see.

Tomb Of The Unknown Writer

Listen children
But you won't hear,
Of the midnight ride
Of Paul Revere.

Someone asked,
What's in a name?
"I've never heard
"Of a man named Twain."

Don't serve the world -
You must serve Heaven!
When Judas died
There was only eleven.

I sang a song
Dreamed from Lennon;
She shook her head,
As if I was sinnin'.

She screamed to God:
"Don't raise the sun!
"Can't you see
"My book is not done?"

Dead secret dreams
Howl deep in the dark;
Homeless man cries
Pacing the park.

A very successful
Mortgage lender,
Lives for his weekly
Weekend bender.

Breathless reports:
"A sea shift change!"
As we reveal
More of the same.

Call MASH units,
My lines have been lost!
How many verse
Will this battle cost?

A purple heart
For losing his war;
Give all you got
The world will ask more.

You got blood on your face
You big disgrace
Kickin' your hope
All over the place.

He fought a struggle
That's never been won:
A man who serves two
Instead of the One.

Emily raised me
Up to the blue sky,
But the Unknown Writer
Lives only to die.

The Big Shot

"So this is it..." He rubbed the nugget between his fingers deep inside the dark cave. "What will I do now? It's over..."

No more gold. No more high living. No more successful man of the world. No more pretending. No more Mr. Big Shot. The charade was over.

He slumped down in the mine's darkness, overcome with despair. His gold had been all he was. Back to nothingness. Back to being a nobody. Back under his rock.

"I can show my face never again."

He was thinking of the haunts he'd frequent as a big shot, buying drinks and friendships into the night. But him showing up without his gold? He'd not get the time of day - just as before he came across the mine.

"I guess things have returned to their natural order. It's a relief in a way. I can go back to being a nobody. Living that lie was a chore. They really thought I was making it on my own! But I wasn't making it on anything I had on the inside, just what I found on the outside. I knew this day would come. Damn!"

With a clean departure he could maintain his illusion. "Where did Jennings go? Haven't seen him in ages!" "Oh, he got tired of us and went on to bigger and better things, no doubt." Probably best to move to another city, to begin as an unknown the rest of his days. If only there were a way to live without the gold.

He couldn't help playing the big shot. He knew it was a lie but what a glorious lie! It certainly had made his personal life more unpleasant needing to keep people away from his golden illusion machine. But at least he had a revered public persona, like he was really somebody to be respected. That was a hunger that dogged him his entire life. To be respected for himself, that was the gold he truly desired. Having faked his way in the door made that hunger all the more painfully obvious.

He'd learned a great deal about people along the way. Amazing how many are frauds too! From his purchased perch of reverence, they showed their true faces to him. They too lived for their public persona, unable to see through his phony facade. A true person of substance would have called him out. There were a few he knew who watched in disapproving silence. They would know the true reason he could show his face no more. Loser.

Jennings wondered how he'd fare going back to his old life. "I never should have stuck my neck out like that!" Even if the old crowd maintained an unknowing respect for him in his permanent absence, what does that mean? What value does it have? Nothing - other than one more shoe waiting to drop. But his lies were all he had - and all he hoped to have.

"I can take this last nugget and tell them I closed a big deal and when I disappear I'll be a legend in their minds forever. At least someplace in the universe I'll be well thought of, however mistaken it might be."

Saturday Morning Suicide Note

Dear Emily, I have no possible hope of having a girlfriend, that was a choice I made long, long ago. You are one person who can understand what that means for living life. Everything I do is pointless. God is not on my side. You are an incredibly kind and loyal person. I would have begged, borrow and stole for your friendship - until I realized there's no point in a dishonest relationship. I loved you very much. You were a childhood dream come true. The guilt was beyond oppressive but those few months talking to you was like Christmas every day. There's only one way this can end - and you know that. The daymares run into nightmares that run into daymares. There is no escaping the ravages. That's why people do bad things, you know, because they block themselves off from love and need to express it. There is no possible excuse for that. All things I do without love, therefore, are meaningless. I write on conjecture and that is its own form of hell - even if that conjecture is correct. The deception renders praise useless, they speak of a person who does not exist. Others are desperate too out there but I can speak only of myself. I always knew it would come to this. You will feel no pain when I'm gone, no sense of loss. I misuse and abuse my art to aid in the deception of my true condition. No one alive understands what talent I have. Even I can only guess. But to go on like this is criminal. Thank God I have you to understand that. You are my secret friend now so you won't have to bear the shame of me.

P.S. Don't turn into one of those political fossils. You are better than that. If you want to make the world a better place, for you, just breathe.

More Loser Writer Navel Gazing

"Sure you got drunk. You have the best excuse in the world for losing; no trouble losing when you got a good excuse. Winning... that can be heavy on your back, too, like a monkey. You'll drop that load too when you got an excuse. All you gotta do is learn to feel sorry for yourself. One of the best indoor sports, feeling sorry for yourself. A sport enjoyed by all, especially the born losers."

- The Hustler

Writing without money is pointless. Money without writing is pointless. Those who can solve that riddle reach the heaven of the good life. Those who can't live in a literal hopeless hell, tortured for eternity.

Naturally, many writers get very angry about this. So they write what sells even if it's dishonest. That is another form of prison to be a liar-writer. The praise you receive in reality condemns you to a cell. Life in the cell makes you sick then everyone lauds you for dying for your craft. It's a plan.

Many writers become professional victims, using our corrupt world as a crutch. The amount of injustices done to creative types is beyond measure. For this the world will one day pay more horribly than it ever imagined. It will be a beautiful, beautiful justice. But that is not now. And those who cannot overcome are condemned to half-lives, to be forever looking in the candy store but never tasting.

Or suppose you simply want to fancy yourself as a writer. You can be like a golfer who practices but never enters the tournament. That way, you can go undefeated! You can make magnificent arguments on how wonderful you'd be that no one can refute. You can take golf lessons, espouse your philosophy on how hard work (or whatever) is needed to win, and create a glorious career in your head of which you can boast about at the country club bar. Then when you leave the room everyone shakes their head and laughs.

Or maybe you have talent you don't what to share. Talent is like love: there's a million reasons not to share it, only one good one to share. You're on the putting green and in an expression of your pure self you make a long wondrous putt that cannot be done by accident. Someone sees this and runs over excitedly to congratulate on your talent. You immediately curse yourself for carelessly exposing yourself, dismissing all accomplishments as simply luck. If you win, people will know everything about you. Who wants that? But your talent perpetually drives you back to the course, the only place where you're home.

So most writers end up as miserable losers; perverting, stifling, or running away. As with anything, your honesty determines your true success. Though writing is a lonely profession, some need help, a partner in crime if not always in deed. Where is Lennon without McCartney or Laurel without Hardy? No two paths to success are exactly the same. One must find one's own way.

Or to put all this another way: I am nothing without her.

I AM Judas

"As for the one who betrays me, it would be better for him had he never been born."

There are many who betrayed Jesus. From the temple elders (may they rot in hell), to the corrupt Pilate, to the weak and fearful masses who voted for his crucifixion (thus guaranteeing that to be their fate). But there's only one who betrayed him directly, as only one of his inner circle could. That would be me, to my everlasting sorrow. Nothing after that can possibly have any meaning.

For you see, after having betrayed Jesus with a kiss, I can never trust myself to kiss again.

Few are those who realize what Jesus was like. Some have compared him to a rock star we see today and there is some merit in that argument. But Jesus was so much more. The first thing you remember is the energy and the light. You hear of people talk about a person having presence in a room, well, Jesus's was off the charts. There was a continual feeling of excitement around him, one of the joy of life and the promise of hope. One really did feel one could do anything. That seemed perfectly normal. The whole world around Jesus appeared abnormal, cheating itself, living in false fear.

Looking back, it's easy to see I was using Jesus as a crutch. I never learned to stand on my own two feet. That's why I thought I was better than the other apostles. I watched them struggle in silent derision. "Just use the shortcut like I did, dummies!" What I didn't realize was they did not have my understanding of who Jesus was. It required no faith for me to believe in him. But I had not the faith to believe in myself. For the others, those two things were one in the same.

Who can know my guilt? No matter how many times I return, I cannot escape it. I have tried to put my intelligence to good use over the ages but always without a kiss (which means I ended up sabotaging myself in the end). I live as a poacher. I go to where life has been created by others, living off it vicariously, a creep masturbating in the shadows, not to be a part again. Many are my foolish followers walking in my footsteps, thinking themselves clever. I see traitors denigrating patriots without fear under the living sun. When I see this, I know the fools to be legion.

In the class of Jesus I was a star. But I failed the final test. Now, only by a kiss can my cell be unlocked. Is there redemption even for me? I know that's promised to every soul born (why else would anyone come to this fucking nightmare), but will I face it? What can have meaning inside a prison? Great proclamations heard only by stone walls. By deception I must live but that's no life at all. Who can love Judas? What can he have to offer? Sharing the knowledge of sin makes no difference, only sharing the experience of love.

Yes, I, Judas, knew to believe more than any other alive, I just refused to do so.

Ruinations, Ruminations On A Ruined Life

"I'm a joke. My life is a joke. I'm not worth your time." That was the ugly truth I had to hide from Emily. She didn't understand that I can know, but I can't do. So my words mean nothing, because they are attached to nothing. I wonder if she has figured this out.

I'm on the edge of understanding I should have committed social suicide with her honestly. I would be in a better position today. The position I'm in now is a living hell. It just never ends.

Money, of course, is God's trump card cross for happiness. I realize now no scheme I come up will solve it. I must surrender to suffering and death. It strips life of any meaning. Either you hit big with your dreams or God sabotages your every move. So I no longer try. It's very hard to understand you're not supposed to try and survive.

...

Still battling the stores. The pressure of always having to learn and knowing the price of even a single mistake is overwhelming. It will take years to salvage this situation. It seems I survived at depot but then I must ask myself, what have I won? At best, survival. It's really a matter of picking my trauma. I have to remember the no-trauma option does not exist. But in relative terms it seems it does. You're grateful to dodge the bullet but then the war goes on.

I am rage. Everything good gets absorbed by the perpetual funding required for my endless loneliness. Either I starve my body or my soul. I can't stand any particle of myself. Hope you're happy, God.

Beyond tired of abusing myself, always pretending. What am I going to do at the office? Yell out I've got no place to put my dick? I just stomp around miserable.

I'm only happy when trying to do the impossible. That madness has destroyed my life.. The pursuit of a false ego.

Life is nothing but an endless series of dispiriting chores.

My life has no meaning, purpose, or direction...

Amazon is taking over the world, using up all the land for their warehouses where we'll all be forced to work whether we like it or not. I joined the resistance. We went to raid one of their trucks bringing inventory but when we opened the cab there was no one there, no one to convert, driverless.

I and this other guy walked by a long, high smooth wall. "John Lennon lives behind there with his family," my companion informs me. At the bottom I saw a hole out which was a very active ant colony. I remember thinking I have about as much chance of getting in there as I do getting through that hole.

There were lots of us in the school hallways, some legitimate some not. Media was hanging around so the powers that be were distracted. I was an adult so people automatically assumed I was being responsible as kids are always the enemy in this world. But I was supposed to be showing up for some classes. Was waiting for the top of the hour when they start to join in but I got to talking and missed it. I was worried someone would notice the amount of time I'm playing hooky.

By another school is a clump of trees ringed by some bushes in their front lawn. There's a gap in the bushes and if you crawl through you find this hidden clear space, a perfect place to hide. It would be awesome to stay there and listen to everyone walk by and secretly know what's going on. But if I got found out there they'd all know I had no life. Must always pretend to have a life.

I am dying right before their eyes and no one says a word. Do they not see, or wish to see or just not say? Success for me is when I can hide my dying. Then I realize that's no success at all. Please let me die.

I can't shake the blackmares even after all these years. They are sapping my soul, draining me every time I close my eyes. How can I escape? They are more horrible than death. I must poach my talents to keep the lies alive to stave off nuclear winter. I must warm my house by burning the furniture but then it's gone and I'm cold with no furniture. Who would want to live in that house?

I can't stand the ads for Henley's 70th birthday concert. He's going to sing and tell stories and have 'special guests'. Sounds like heaven. I have the means to go if I wanted, that's not the issue. After a while I figured out what's bugging me. I wouldn't be able to suffer listening to someone talk about all the great things they've in the their life while I've done nothing. I get my nose rubbed in my own pee enough as it is.

I'm stuck in the bottom of a well. I jumped in here in 2009 thinking I was dead anyway and down here I couldn't embarrass Emily. No one can hear me, not even God. Never to touch or be touched. The blackmares can never stop while I'm here. Nothing else matters until I can get out. But who can help me even if they do hear me? Who can possibly love in this world? Death cannot come too soon.

I mourn Emily's absence every day. But if I were to say those exact words to her she would not believe them no matter how true. This is true of all my feelings. No one believes. So what is it I'm supposed to say?

All my efforts and energy and talents are perverted to the facade. I know what a normal person is supposed to say so I script out my lines even though I have no true interest in them. There actually is no such thing as Alzheimer or senility. It's just people's losing interest coming to light.

The truth is I have no future and should kill myself. I am too alone, too isolated. I can tell this truth to no one. No one can help. They don't have the time even if they wanted to. This has been true all my life since I fatally decided to hide my feelings and destroy myself. Nobody cares. They just can't wait to lie about doing it.

Was forced to face yet again how screwed I am without Emily. Listening to Sara talk and seeing her pursue her life forced me to realize the hopelessness of my own having failed to do so. I was a social disaster as always too.

Dear God: PLEASE STOP HURTING ME. PLEASE TAKE YOUR THUMB OFF THE SCALE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Without Emily, I have no breath. My heart has no beats of its own. So much of me is missing. Will she ever understand that? How can she when I keep refusing to communicate, to expose myself like I need. What's wrong with me that I fail real life so badly?

I'm out of intellectual moves to make. Nothing short of actual help can do now. How can I possibly get help?

All I want to do is lie.

my life is only getting more and more ridiculous. where's Emily?

Everything is an act. It's killing me. Act for work, for eating out, for movies, whatever. Always a different character. This dishonesty is a large part of my nightmares. I just want a girl. I don't want to die. All this just to cover up what everyone already knows. How can I not feel stupid and ashamed?

i want to die

May 11th, I've finally been given permission to commit suicide!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! God is off the charts angry and wants me dead, dead, dead. Agents of evil will try to keep me here in torment. I will have to watch out for them. For the first time in my life I have hope of this hell ending.

i've never known fear like this. heart is racing, body is sweating. what can i do? where can i go? who can help now?

close to heart attack in the nights. selling these stores is life and death. if god has his thumb on the scale i'm fucking dead, end of story. all i want is a fair shot.

revenge on Debby. she's untouchable in this world, even by god. but god still has justice for those types and that's through their children. i can only hope that is the case here and that she jails herself by refusing to come clean as a dishonest parent.

death is the only thing left for me. i've left myself no way out. that's why everything keeps coming up with a dead end even though they are answers for normal people, nothing can work for me. no one will feel the pain my loss because no one can know, not even Emily.

suicide, come save me. i never want to move or breathe again.

so nobody knows i'm faking it all the time. i push it to the back of my mind to i can pretend to be functional. screwing up with Emily was a death sentence for me. nobody knows that either. what's left anyway?

no matter what I say to her, she's gonna say, "Who cares?" I can't see a way around that.

Crashing The (Papal) Pearly Gates

"OK, here I am, come to claim my just reward!"

St. Peter sighed. "Yes, so does everyone. Name, please."

"It's me! The Pope! Top God guy on earth."

"I'm afraid you'll need to be more specific."

"How can you not know me?? Pope John Paul Jones. I secretly named myself after the greatly underrated Led Zeppelin bassist. I'm a huge Zep fan but I repressed it for the greater glory of God. How moral is that! Setting the example for all those impressionable young minds."

"Frankly, I don't know what a "Pope" is."

"I'm God's top representative on Earth!"

"God shows no record of this."

"There must be some mistake. People voted on me. And they were God guys too!"

"I'm not seeing where God voted for you."

"You don't understand. I had millions of followers. They came from around the world to hear what I had to say. I was spreading the Word!"

"You were spreading something..." St. Peter inwardly laughed at his own inside joke.

"If only I had my robes and giant hat. What about all the souls I converted?"

"With no record of your own salvation, how could you save others? I'm sorry. I'm just not finding any valid evidence here for you to enter Heaven."

"But I devoted my life to God!!"

"So say you. I can only go by what I see. Your only redeeming quality was being a Zeppelin fan and, as you say, you foolishly repressed that."

"I did that for God, godammit! Get God's ass out here! We need to get this straightened out!"

"I am God's representative here."

"Bullshit! No one can speak for God but God, you judgmental jerk!"

"No word I speak is my own. They flow directly from Him."

"But how can God not know who the Pope is!"

"God is not responsible for you making up some sort of fairy tale declaring yourself His emissary or whatever. Only the truth shows up for me to evaluate. What other possible criteria could I use?"

"I get it. This is some sort of test of my faith. Well, sir, I've been a man of faith all my life. I am but truth's humble servant. Thousands of news articles have been written about me and my honest preachings. I'm not about to abandon my faith - now or ever!"

"Point being?"

"I'm here to tell you that if there truly is no evidence of my sincere devotion, then pull that lever now! For I -"

The lever popped back into place, poor ol' St. Pete shaking his head. "It's just shocking the number of people who demand I do that! I just said there's no evidence he should enter, not that he couldn't."

Crashing The Pearly Gates II

"Oh, you're going to love me!"

Just once St. Peter hoped he'd hear: "Oh, you're going to hate my sorry ass."

"OK, why's that?"

"I was HR director for a large construction company. Jesus was a carpenter, you know."

"Innocence by association, I suppose."

"Exactly, we were doing the Lord's work and I was caretaker for our company's most precious asset: our people."

"A noble endeavor."

"Indeed! Why, during a tornado's aftermath I helped organize our employees onto buses to clean the debris and help out at shelters."

"Very good deed, no doubt."

"That's right! Other corporations sent money, we sent people! So you see: Jesus was wrong. You can serve both money and God!"

"So your company saw profit in this?"

"Of course! I made sure all our projects were successful."

"But our records show you built a 100 million dollar highway down in Austin that was so detrimental to traffic flow they had to shut it down almost as soon as it was opened."

"Oh, yes, but that wasn't our fault."

"You're saying someone else built it?"

"Well, we built it but we did it entirely according to our high moral code."

"Then how could it have gone so wrong?"

"We were right. It was the truth that was wrong."

"Come again?"

"We had employees who were trying to sabotage the company with their negativity and bad attitude. Naturally, I had to guide them back in line and get everyone on the same page."

"Just exactly what did these employees do?"

"They kept saying what we were doing was stupid. They kept saying the design and our methods would never work."

"Were they right?"

"Absolutely not. Our gloriously perfect VPs had already mandated that it would work. These complainers were being insubordinate and seditious to our great moral corporation. Just think of the executive bonuses they were jeopardizing!"

"But these bad employees, as you put it, could have prevented a monumental blunder and serious damage to the company and its reputation."

"It's absolutely impossible to know if something is going to work or not until you try it. I told those bastards employees right in their face: "You can't say it's stupid!!""

"But why defend the executives since you admit no one had a way of knowing if the mandate was correct."

"HR ostensibly represents all employees of the company (wink, wink) - but our real job is to protect upper management because they truly are the company, not lowlife complainers."

"So it was not your job to serve the truth?"

"In a moral organization like ours, policy is the gospel - and I never violated policy."

"But heaven serves only the Truth."

"Sounds like you need a good HR person! Better to serve policy."

"So the truth is you deserve to be in Heaven?"

"Don't see how anyone could say otherwise (except for those malcontents!)."

"Yet you still refuse to violate policy regardless of the truth?"

"That's the fact, Jack! That would be OUTRAGEOUS!"

St. Peter pulled the lever (as happens all too often) opening the trap door downward as per her inviolate policy.  Next in line was another employee of the same company.

"Not sure if you want me. No one on earth did. Called me bad names and accused me of betrayal, saying I was a destroyer of the world because I pointed out the truth. Hardly anyone I talked to thought I was doing the right thing. But those guys are still in charge and I died from exhaustion. Was I a fool to have faith?"

"Of course not, only servants of the truth can enter. Otherwise one will choose Hell while thinking it Heaven. And just so you'll know, your HR lady won't be joining us ever. So many people seek to get into Heaven but all who choose it will."

Wilderness Wandering

So this is the fate to which I've condemned myself: the fate of the damned.

The grasses are eight feet high in every direction. For how far? Two more feet or two more lifetimes? How can I know? How can I rise above to see which way to go? If I toil in futility, set me free now. But do I quit while on the edge of freedom?

Is this what they call a crisis of conscience? To endlessly labor in cutting down tall grasses to move...where? Forwards? Backwards? I just want to cry to think my life means so little. Why has God hidden purpose from me? I won't find it mired in this living hell.

I tried civilization with its civilized lies and civilized cries and its civilized knives. I could find no civility in civilization, only the appearance of it if one wished to be deceived. A diet of deception is their idea of life. Would I be content if I could fool myself as well as they do? I came here to hide. But now that I'm hidden, now what?

At night ghostly fears descend upon me. They feast on me unrestrained. Here in the tall grasses no one can hear your plea. I do know murderous monsters roam these grasses, free to kill as they please in sanctioned darkness. They come here looking for stragglers like me. I won't be missed if I die. How cruel is it that the only ones who understand I can't live in sick society are my sick betrayers?

I won't be sad to die. The wilderness holds no hope. I must feed myself a false future to continue. It's a diet of death. I'm shell-shocked in a war without possible end. Separated from love, I boil under the gazing sun; each dawn I die. The only true friend I had was the one who said she could not help me.

Every day the heart breaks in brittle cracks, bugs crawling over my limp body as I slump down in debilitating despair. Speak whatever philosophy you please, it changes not the swallowing jungle gulag. Into the wilderness dreamers come to die, concealing their misfortune from eyes who know. Am I left to pray only for the impossible? I can see the mocking moon but not escape to it.

On bitter almonds I must chew, another lost life among a sea of millions floating down the river of doomed desire. God cares not why we've chosen this path, only that we're cleansed from the earth.

Crashing The Pearly Gates

"Hey, you guys are going to love me!"

St. Peter, of course, had heard that line countless times while guarding the pearly gates to Heaven, yet he was always forced to bite.

"OK, why's that?"

"Man, you would, like, not believe how obedient I was! I did everything I was told, no questions asked. Always with a happy heart! I was never like those complainers with their bad attitude, no sir! I had my orders!"

"And what were those orders?"

"Whatever they said! No problems here. No matter how many Jews they told me to stuff in the oven I made it work. That's what you call a positive, can-do attitude."

"And you saw no evil in this?"

"Not a drop! All perfectly on the up and up, following orders right down the line. Not possible for me to have done wrong."

"What made you so sure you were right to obey?"

"It's always right to obey! I never did anything on my own, very strict about that, always remaining pure."

"You found it commendable to do as you were told?"

"Absolutely. I always made sure I had another human telling me what to do. Can't go wrong that way!"

"Why did you do what this other human said?"

"He was an official moral authority figure!"

"How do you know?"

"Other humans made papers for him saying it was so. And he had on these real fancy uniform clothes too! Papers and clothes, can't argue with that!"

"What if you found out those had been forged?"

"No, they were real enough. Enough other humans said so."

"Perhaps they were lying?"

"They were in charge so it had to be true. I'm not one of those malcontents!"

"People in charge lie too."

"I wouldn't know about that. That's for other smart people to decide, I am but a humble lowly worm not worthy of an opinion. But to be honest with you, frankly it sounds like you might have a bit of an attitude!"

"Oh, I can most assuredly tell you I do."

"Alright! Does that mean I passed the test? What kind of cool place do us good guys get??"

"I'll leave that decision to you."

"Oh, no! I trust whatever you decide and completely defer to your judgment."

"Then let me bring out Mr. Heinrich Muellerheim, your camp superior. We can let him decide your fate as you allowed him to do before."

"Worked once, ought to work again! Just look at those glorious metals on his shirt. That shows judgment you can trust."

"Fine, fine. What do you say, Herr Muellerheim?"

"Send him to hell for all eternity. I'm stuck there, his stupid ass can go too!"

"Hey, wait! I'm not going to hell just because he says so! You can't base a decision just on your own selfish interests. Things have to be fair to make things work out!"

"But you already deferred to him. You said it was the moral thing to do."

"You're not really going to listen to that guy after what he just said? He's only sending me to hell because he's in hell. That's OUTRAGEOUS!"

"Sounds to me like you have your own opinion and are questioning authority!"

"No! Never, never!"

"OK, then, bye-bye." St. Peter opened the trap door, the supplicant never to be seen again. Next up was a torturer from the Spanish Inquisition.

"Hey, you guys are going to love me! I was like totally devoted to the big boss: he had on these fancy robes, a tall white hat, and carried a cool cross! I never failed in my duties no matter how much the bad people screamed!"