With Anger

I’d look better dressed in bullet holes and broken teeth.

When you dangle yourself like a worm on a hook, you’ve no right to look surprised or offended when something finally takes the bait.  Put yourself out there at your own risk; trial-and-error, really, until the end, and if you’ve the willpower to endure these constantly occuring failed trials, you’re considerably more impressive than me.  I am relatively sure that a bad attitude and a willingness to study something you hate is what you need to end up married, rich, and empty.  Hollow like a dead tree across the forest floor, and one filled with a hornets’ nest, at that.

Single birds don’t make nests.  They sleep upside down, waiting for the blood in their hearts to finally vacate entirely, moving to a more sensible home in the head.  They don’t eat worms, or seeds and berries, or rodents, either.  They’re still choking on fairy tales and promises, and all these fables speak of a morality that hasn’t died or disappeared so much as it never existed.  So these birds can’t sing, either.  They’re asphyxiating.  They know how the world could have been–and they can’t reconcile that bright place with dim reality.  They can’t change nature–they can only survive, and their broken sensibilities quail at the idea of enduring much longer.  Considering the gauntlet has become as difficult as actually running the gauntlet.  Even if you don’t love tragedy, you lark, or starling, or warbling oriole, you’d better learn to love it, because for the most part, it’s all you’ll ever have.

People have parted with me.  What can’t be helped must be endured?  Fuck that.  The world isn’t fair?  Fuck that.  We can’t all be saints?  Fuck that.  We’re not all saints because we chose not to be.  You get it?  We could have behaved better–we could have transcended the pitiful humanity we’ve clung to and renamed reality.  Reality is a cop-out, and one that reeks heinously of bullshit.  We could have been celestial bodies of altruism and a truthful humility; we traded that in for a more comfortable median lifestyle and attributed it to the fact that we’re not all perfect.  We’re not all perfect because we gave up trying–we accepted it.  We became what we once hate because it became too hard, or impossible to understand.  The wrestling of our conscience with our desire ended with a stalemate, and then conscience decided it didn’t want to compete anymore.  All these people don’t look so much like people anymore–they’re crumpled, sweat-soaked, and bloody towels lying pathetically in the middle of the ring.  They gave up.

I don’t want to give up.