The Same Sun

All that ever was, all that ever will be in this life, is you. Pain and pleasure come and go along with people, passing like the weather: snow, rain....shine. All one can do is clothe oneself. For when the smoke clears, there you are--the same you. A conglomeration of experiences since you passed from the womb, marred but true.

For real change is subtle. Wrinkles manifest in slow increments. Often we are the last to realize how far we've marched, how ravaging our wars were, how torn we have been.

Oh, mutilations are violent, but are merely physical. Their psychological impact takes time to work, to alter the revolutions of thought, to shift the shock. Our elliptical orbits change in small degrees when, some years later, we can map the processes with a compass. Nevertheless, we still turn around the same sun, the same sun.

All that ever was, all that ever will be in this life, is you. You take yourself with you wherever you go--you are cognizant even in oblivion, sensing in sleep. You cannot run from you. You can only slip into gross psychoses.

So look into your mind's mirror, and find a way to like what you see.

The Dawn of Insignificance

Today I stood, and my knees were quaking. The sun looked overfed as it shined across the globe, overrun with our species. An image was in my head, of a world atlas, unrolled and supine: all those tired greens, grays and blues, and spidery little labels frozen horizontally across the brittle page.

I envisioned my hands, placed upon the sheet, gripping it at the center in hard fists, the paper protesting, more alive than any of us. My hands were dictatorial, childish, brandishing disunity, as fear swelled my throat. I tore it all to pieces and blew the debris away.

Today I had trouble meeting the public's eyes. Their animal souls gleamed disturbingly. I hazarded a look, and their faces froze, still as a photograph. I broke away, but the damage was done, the image had burned, the simian features stored, framed and placed upon the pedestals of my memory's museum: an estranged depth of muffled whispers, of coursing griefs, of scattered leaves.

I waited for peace to curl through me, settling the bile, upset even in solitude, rippling my sanity, which is prone to fits. I waited for the bus to arrive, to take me away from this dilapidated building and its dead displays, back into the city of Life, where humanity counts. I waited for a time.

Finally I saw the vehicle lumbering in the distance, though its progress was painfully slow, stopping frequently to pick up others like myself. I heaved a sigh of relief and tightly clutched my ticket as the doors squeaked open to admit me. I pushed my face up against the windowpane, panting hotly against the glass, as we rumbled our way back into civilization.

What I Want

I want us to be an oasis from the grind, a relief from the mundane, a cool drink in the drought, friendly faces amongst antagonists. I hate those who attack the attacked, who oppress the oppressed, who aggravate the aggravated.

We mustn't irritate the wound, but be a soothing balm to its infected anger. I want positivity in place of pain; to exchange relief for desperation, a light-heart for woe. I want them to hold their heads high, to return home smiling, to make intelligent contentment contagious.

This is what I want; this is why I react. Because I believe in community, because I resent the disjointed selfishness pouring into the muddy pool of negative human interaction, the weight of economic transactions, of the egomaniacal self-made man myth.

I'm tired of irrational negativity, tired of pushing blame onto the blameless, sorrow upon the innocent. I demand intelligence; I hate all ignorance: systematized, compartmentalized, unrealized.