Tricked-out junkie stumbles through a mindscape strung out on the dope of self-interest, jonesing for another taste of the primo stash, another hit from the pied pipe of preference, stoned blind in a trembly trance of hope and fear.
A taste of cold ashes lingers in the mouth, the same mouth through which a steady stream of mimicry, judgment, and yearning pours out in search of confirmation, in search of reception, in perpetual motion mainly for the longed-for validation of itself to itself – a wry acknowledgement that can never actually be secured.
How could it? Everything changes. There is no personal existence to confirm. It’s a play of smoke and mirrors, a performance on a stage. The pretense of some enduring self — it’s such an incredible charade, a magnificent lie, the Cary Grant of lies, so perfect in every role, so utterly empty when the camera shuts off.
How long can that phony story be pimped around before the bluff is called, the mask ripped off, the empty emptiness inside revealed?
Even now the triple poison of “me, myself, and I” swirls around the neural canals, tracing the restlessness of a hungry ghost clinging to vines and trees of the past, wishing that it will somehow all work out in the future, prodded by fear at every turn, every twist, unwilling to let go, unwilling to give up its feathered seat at the front of the bozo bus, ready to impulsively lash out if anyone dare try to suggest otherwise.
So how was it for me when I paused long enough to notice the tinder stacked at my feet, while a “love me, and then I’ll love you” refrain mechanically echoed around in my brain?
I’d been walking a tightrope of my own design stretched across a chasm of the unknown, my heart furiously pounding in my chest from the futile effort at maintaining a façade of control, while teetering over the foaming chaos waiting down below.
I knew at last I wouldn’t make it – I couldn’t even take another step. It was truly hopeless, and so I fell, and falling, burnt in mid-air, this bird’s wings trailing fire, with a beak spouting yet more stories, even as it burst into flames.
It all must burn, everything must go, even the storyteller, the tightrope walker — that clown on the wire of dumb desire must face the fire and just jump in. The belief that there’s an option is the fraud, the trick that keeps us shuffling in a trance of hope and fear.
Feeling To Infinity 