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!"

Hell Has Come To Breakfast

2017 is going to be the worst year of my life. I hope I can end this nightmare this year. No one knows me, I can leave as I please without causing harm. God will not stop sticking knives in me. Under no circumstances is the torture to end. I can know what but not why. I do know the harder I try to survive the more I will be hurt for it. I only do so to keep up appearances to keep the monsters backed off. There is NO understanding in this world. What's worse, we have to pretend there is, as if the monsters could really help. It's easy to spot the monsters: it's everyone who thinks they are not one. Will God ever love life as much as death? Loving life is the ultimate sin meting out the ultimate punishment. Bite the bitter fruit of death to stay alive or starve to death. Those are our choices. One thing God hates above is dishonesty. That's why evil is bolder and more open every day. I'm doing everything I can to make this world die. We who live in it have no say in it. The mob has murder in its heart and the mob always wins without fail. The mob is like the great flood, wiping out both the good and the bad. What purpose does all this pain serve? Who can comprehend such suffering? I hope I don't see the end of this year. My fate was sealed with Emily anyway. God is angry I was dishonest with her. I was supposed to be honestly rejected. God doesn't need friends or girlfriends and cannot understand those who do. Same goes for money. Terrorist attack news make me feel good. They think they can solve the problem by catching the attackers, always treating the symptom, not the cause. That guarantees the end will come. I cannot wait for them to figure that out. They'll keep up with their "wars" on everything they say they hate until nothing is left. Hell, and more hell. All acts of kindness will be bitterly rewarded in merciless cruelty. In this way God hopes to save the world? Let the dying die. God has no use for the innocent living. The universe has spoken and hell will be served. Only the dead will be safe.

I Saw My Old Lover Today

Many years had slipped my mind,

And I walked a lonely path;

Wandering sidewalk streets unkind,

It's a fool who serves his wrath.

How long had she been waiting for me in that room? Did she search her soul to find my weakest point? Or was it simple dumb luck at this low point to open the door and see her staring into me?

Of these questions I never got an answer.

Her arms were outstretched towards me, thick green moss hanging down in dread. Had she not moved since our painful parting?

She started towards me mired in clutching disgrace. "Help me! Woe are my woes! I'm rotting without you! Can't you see?"

She hoped to bring me into her world of hurt; an illusory cure. She sees me with stars in her eyes, dreaming of a future that can never be.

Years in the making was this; wallowing in atrophy and false gods of desire. She said she would track me until the end of her time. She spoke of broken love and our lost scenes of life. She must grapple with thee once more with her scaly skin.

She had been brooding in the dark; unkempt, swallowing sorrow in contempt of life. She left a trail of shiny slime as she moved which then turned black with ugly scent. These things I were to find attractive in the cavernous echoes of her helplessly wishful mind, to "prove" the uselessness of life without me.

"I don't care if you hate me or ignore me forever and ever, I know you still love me!"

No point in pleading my case. Her mind fixated on me alone, parsed from the entirety of the universe, I was the key. We had to be. She will sloth behind me along my trail, daring me to rest knowing I have found no home of my own. I can never be safe until I do. Why did I ever let this creature in the door? How could I have been so blind as to her clawing crippled clutches?

But how to reason with the unreasonable? To show love is suicide, to encourage the creature's wrath. But to rebuff it kept alive the unobtainable fantasy of an Absolute Answer to her woes. She dances with dreams of deception, needing a partner for an eternal twisted tango. Will I ever be free?

"Save me! By my life I have been swamped!"

Pray For Doom

God is like a giant spider standing over you with inescapable tentacle legs surrounding you like a cage. It bites you in piercing agony and you ask God for relief from your pain but that cannot come because God is the source of your pain and God never goes against God. You are helpless in your misery pleading for God to die and cry out, "Pray for doom for we are doomed to pray!" As the venom works its way through your system you wonder why you ever existed, what's the point of all this? But that is not to be known as it's not to be known how to stop the killing poison. Nothing can change. Ever. Not even the tiniest little thing can change. All must be as it is no matter how terrible or horrible the outcome. All trust is misplaced. Just bleed. Bleed more every day. Bleed until there's nothing left. Hope begins when time ends.

Her Chamber Cell Within

In dreaded footsteps' time,
Knocking on Fifty's door;
Living a life on high
A very successful whore!

Touchless cloud dweller
In the San Francisco mist;
Of life's demanded treasures
She'd checked off duty's list!

(Of lessers' suffering woe
She holds a secret contempt:
"Should have been more like I
"Who lives in worldly exempt!")

Feeling safely validated
(Using her charms bought 'n' sold);
She yields to asking angels:
"Is yours an honest gold?"

When time to accumulate
She'd never hesitate;
Then prays to her holy God
To be a holy fraud.

But in her aspired greed
To face the mirror crack'd,
To give up burdening gold
Would surely break her back!

She strolls the castle grounds
(Where royal woes must hide);
Her secret garden locked,
So many flowers have died!

Castle walls repel and trap,
She never lays the drawbridge down;
Starvation fells precious petals
California chewing cow.

She points in facial paint
To fine cold castle stone;
But without the flowers' warmth
It chills her to the bone.

Despite the worldly wars she won
And golden linen worn,
The jailer's keys keep rattling:
"Why were you ever born?"

She'd gotten all she wanted
Never doing what she wanted;
Stillborn dreams betrayed and spurned
Replace lust for life departed.

On extinction's door
She'll end up like the dodo,
If she ever looks unhappy
In annual family photo.

When asked to contribute
She displays her bank account;
But to live a life dishonest
No offerings Love counts.

A smile for every person,
Never shows anger or rile;
But slits throats in a minute
Who dare to limit her style.

Chaining herself to be
Where no one else can help;
Living for her selfish
For having lost her self.

"Yes, down through the years
"My selfish I have carried,
"But if it were not so
"I couldn't have stayed married!"

The crackling palace warm and dry
Haughtily denies accusing sin;
But wails eternal winter cold
Inside her chamber cell within.

Moron Whisperer

Sometimes, one really is faced with the choice of the lesser of two evils. Mine was to be drug to an enormous corporate Christmas party (the other choice was endless whining). The amount of internal self-cursing on the state of my life while driving there cannot be overstated. We pulled up to one of those intimidating, unwelcoming office spectacles downtown meant to make the inferior feel more inferior. Worst part was I had a flashback to my many times passing by this same building in absolute despair while homeless. I'm sure that's a story I can share at the party.

Traveling up the elevator I felt as a condemned prisoner on the way to his execution: no way out. But while the elevator was rising the feeling in my stomach was sinking. We were not alone in there so I'm already feeling as ill-at-ease and out-of-place as I feared. I paused as the doors parted to the sea of people ready to mock the moron among them. I had to think someday someone would make a passion play of this ordeal.

My invite naturally went her own way since it was her corporate masters swilling the night away. I was left like chum in the water, my insides twisting in agony. I wished to cry out for help but (rightly) assumed that would only make matters worse. What was I going to say to anyone? They ask me how I am and I say, "Homeless and suicidal. And you?" Sounds like a real ender to me.

These are the people I very carefully avoid; office creatures, aliens of a bubbled world that rests on the backs of workers like me. People like me horrify them because we see them from underneath, where they can't hide, as we mop their floors and empty their wastebaskets. There are spies wherever you go.

My reeling mind tried to cling to the idea I had some sort of buffer between me and them before my fraudulence could be exposed. I even overheard some inane conversation that made me realize office workers are definitely not rocket scientists. But that was small comfort. For while their need to be self-oblivious provided me some protection, it takes only one pair of piercing eyes to unmask you and leave you hanging out to dry before all the world. It was for those eyes I desperately scanned the room.

In doing so I noticed many types of creatures. I saw the slick and oily, warring witches and sad sycophants, the supremely insulated, diabolical climbers, and other assorted trolls that made my blood run cold. A few did surprise me with their seeming humanness and I wondered how they kept that trait in this inhuman environment. But then I glanced upon a pair of eyes, as if I were prey spotted in the wild. Was only for an instant, a woman's, dark haired, no more. "Shit, hope that's only my imagination."

Regardless, I got rattled and I felt my nerve giving out. The screaming for help idea came back in play. I wondered how much of my misery and confusion was showing on my carefully posed face. At that exact moment there wasn't a single moment of my life above doubt. Let the good Lord take me now. And that's when a woman's voice whispered in my ear: "Don't be an impostor for love."

For a second I was frozen, mesmerized by the thought. Had my life been read? Was this a lifeline of love? It seemed like several minutes but it was only few seconds before I turned my head to see the identity of this whisperer. She slipped away too quickly, like an eel between the reeds. I caught the back of her neck and her stylish outfit. "Emily!" I couldn't resist indulging myself apparently.

The thought of her finding me, rescuing me, forgiving me, and actually not wanting me to die elated me to heaven. The fantasy of at last playing the winner, I felt myself rise above the room on a cloud of bliss, validated and redeemed. I noticed I started breathing. In the blink of an eye my entire life changed. Inside, I was kneeling with tears of joy. This too felt like several minutes but was only several seconds. Then I had to realize: how could that be Emily?

Everyone wants to believe they've drawn the winning ticket. God help me if Emily ever found out about this flashing fantasy. I'm sure I'd get an earful. Who knows? Maybe this woman was going around saying this to every loser she spotted in the room. Had I been singled out? Mulling the possibilities was driving me out of my mind. I cursed myself for yet another fatal hesitation, where if she'd spoken at a moment where I wasn't so weak I could have stopped her and found out what she meant. But it seems these things ONLY happen in a moment of weakness.

So I was left only with considering her words.

Maybe it wasn't just me. Maybe everyone in the room is an impostor for love. Maybe she was really speaking to someone near me and I overheard. Maybe, maybe, maybe. What I did know was I hated the message, like she was reading my mind. Yes, I was faking it. I'm always faking it. How else does one get by when living at the mercy of lunatics and monsters devoid of reason? And what benefit does it do me to reveal my crippled self to those who cannot help? Was she speaking of the here and now or relationships in general? I had to get out of the room.

I stayed down in the lobby dreaming up "Die Hard" sequences to pass the time. My blackmailer to this event rang my cell and chewed me out for my usual "negative" attitude. I did not bother trying to explain the whisper. All I wanted was back under my rock to contemplate those biting words in a safe place.

That night in bed I replayed it over and over. The Emily elation genuinely bothered me, like finding a lottery ticket with the right numbers but then finding it's for the wrong week. For a brief instance I was somebody once more. But my complaint when I had love was that I was an impostor. What's worse, I didn't have the nerve to find out, putting me on the run. A man once said, "You run, you die." And that's dearly proven out so far. Did hearing this advice mean I have another chance coming? How can that be?

And worst of all was my first knee-jerk response to the whisper, the one thing I'd been burying in dejected doubt from the very first: How else is anyone going to love me?