It distorts the already unclear boundaries and tears at the very fabric of its comfort. It takes the softer edges and jags them into teeth. This including canines. You know, the ones made for shredding away at the muscle of a sacrifice. An unwilling giving that is forced to accept that it will end here and now as feed. Sustenance for the insatiable maw.
In the distortion there is a sense of value. A lesson. Once it's over, you must move on so to see that from the beginning is the wise approach. Don't fear and flee the monster; look the monster in the eyes and take in its gruesome quality. Challenges seem to arise like pop quizzes to see if you're learning anything.
It's defeating, at times in absolution, and swaddles one in the mirage that they are a starving wanderer crawling along the hot desert sand. At sea and alone, endeavoring chest strokes.
But know: if you were able to do anything well before times became harried, you still can. You were a candle before they snipped your wick, yet the wick is still lit. Still dancing with fire. Onto a new wick and setting ablaze a whole new and fragrant pillar.
She is that pillar upon which I pedestal a new-found and idealistic home. An ethereal living space between the stars and my thoughts. She is in the very dreams I have. A sudden dahlia amongst the otherwise green or wilting. An extra hour of moonlight for the lonely owl. I pined over her. Doted and fell fond. Each time, her face would blur and differ, her name I could never catch. Like a wild swordfish. I the angler knowing only my decoy and a great void.
Once, her name was Darkness and her rainbow hair confused me. We lay on a barren bed in a barren house. She moved for the door, unsure of her answer, and rested her shoulder against the jamb. I only ever saw her backside in black, draping attire. The slump of her internal discomfort showing in her posture. How one side of the top piece slid off the clavicle and down near her elbow. I pleaded for assurance to no avail.
Else once, she may have been the phantom child in a white spring dress who recurred to me several times in my childhood. Her name was an oddity and her face never clear. She went barefoot as would a fairy girl. She administered my fix of the sweet it's okay and hang in there nothings I so required then. Else once, she took me in across the world somewhere. A foreign land of business and layers, where men lined in a mileage of queues. Professional suits and every styling of a portmanteau. We kissed in a boarding station suspended in clouds. The ticket official grew impatient with us and I hid my wariness of this beheld future. All in all, I am in love with an out of focus stranger that manifests in my sleep. She visits under moonlight and takes tenancy in my visions, leaving the door ajar as she is always soon to slip out again. I feel like a man with a crowbar prying the planks from a stubborn, old crate. Who are you? Is this a message? A warning? Another lesson? A past life? A future life?
Nevertheless, I gained a happiness with finding my way into bed for the night. Feeling the sheets crumple around me as I mush the bed set to my liking. Forgetting having to be around people from the day. Forgetting the stress. Always unable to forget one or two new mentions in the weekly gossip. Processing society's expectations and rules and wanting to disappear through a window to another time and place. Where I don't have to force a smile out, assume some character I'm not and create all these relations with people. Especially when they constantly vanish from contact. Especially when I sincerely start to involve myself with one and it backfires completely. Haunting me for years. Ruining said future.
The loneliness culls and moors a solemn canoe. A work not of art but rough and simple conditioning. Made with hands that wished not to get dirty in the production, in turn leaving the canoe ill-prepared and susceptible to drowning. Yet a canoe of the rarest wood. Grain trails that are not to be discovered in other tree yields. And a sturdiness comparable a billygoat's willpower. At times more stubborn than sturdy. Like the crate. Like my yearn to know her name.
***
It discolors what could be perfectly one shade. One hue. One thing. One idea. It interrupts and diffuses the bonding elements that hold components together. There's always a catch. There's always a condition or circumstance that complexes and causes concern for the electrons whirring around the rim. What was once relaxed and refined is now reserved and realistic. Let's be honest, we don't give much thought to the barrier between fantasy and realism do we? We don't tend to the fence material and keep the garden types separated. No, we agitate the soils and plant overwhelming weeds in between that devour the fencing and muddy the categories.
Once, one was vampiric: a crimson pixie cut, catlike eyes, a most supple lip formation, and a need for pain. Any colors suited her but they couldn't mask the Victorian shadow she bore. Her love for melodic and vocal ferocity at the metal shows piqued my interest, and every embrace, few and far between for contact was a desert, smelled seductively of sweet cream and flora. It came a four year mark where I had been the sideman long enough that I would be granted my dues in the form of her companionship. A linkup. A broken circuit of shining copperwire soldered in place. Atoms and signals flaring with energy. Days busy with her reminiscence. Days spent waiting on her replies. Days that grew in size and length, repeating and erasing in succession. Rolling by like a stranger on a bicycle. Confusion, sadness, anger, disappointment, a reply. Gasping at the notification and rushing into the text, the little of it. The diction was eyecandy.
