light a fire

it is cold and damp. a fireplace sits unused; i cannot get to it. i miss the fire. i remember a time, a fire, long ago. curled up together, dreaming of better days. days when we might have our own fire, warm, happy, home. a dream of home, of warmth, still a dream. lost then, cold and scared, battered. longing for the protection and comfort of a home, so out of reach.

now i sit in my home, cold. having to weigh the cost against the comfort of heat, as i had to weigh the desire for the TV, its size only accommodated by sitting in front of the fireplace. a trade-off i don't regret, such wonderful things brought right to me, things sharper than real life, no need to leave. i can hole up here, protected, for now. still, i miss the fire, it's unique warmth, warming through and through. i'll just go turn the heat up.

i wonder what's on TV.

coming out

where is that elusive dream? happiness, freedom, meaning? i'll never find it hiding like this in the dark. but i have searched, and have come away scarred and tired. i'll face it again, the world, the unknown. i'll start tomorrow, always tomorrow.

it doesn't let you hide forever, always changing, shifting around you. you find yourself exposed, and all the best spots taken. so pretend this was your idea, a spark of life burgeoning forth. go on, go on, you can only fail, and all the novelty has left that long ago.

angry young man

i was an angry young man, as there is no female equivalent, sadly. we are left to flounder, without identity, home, or understanding. i stayed an angry young man until about 40; now at 45 i am entering a different stage.i may eventually come through a curmudgeon (again, no female equivalent), but i don't think so. i am angry still, but it is not an anger that wants to fight any longer. it is full of sadness and resignation; it only wants to find a home to hide from all of the horrors, and to nurse these wounds which still remain. and just maybe, if possible, alleviate the horror of someone else.

containment

i have a name that contains the essence of who i am; a cryptic way of sending that message to anyone who cares. but who could be so perceptive, and who even knows what the wire mother is anymore? we are down to a null set now. i'll keep writing, my words will survive forever, and one day, another lost monkey will find them, and i will sit with them, and smooth their hair, and we will speak of beauty and the soft, and the savage beauty of truth. - softmonkey

cult victim

let's put aside my dream of riches. i'll settle for comfort and health and be satisfied. but for a mind like mine, comfort is a complicated thing. health as well, for that matter. these things are rare in the world, comfort and health. we forget how rare in wealthy countries. in cases of having enough to live on, the question of comfort comes down to feeling. are we all victims of western thinking, despite our best resistance having taken in a warped view given to us with the explicit purpose of manipulating us to pursue money only to hand it over for shit we never needed? could we be deprogrammed, like cult victims, removed from the source until the lies become apparent? but we will cling, like cult victims, convinced that we sincerely love that which anyone else can see only wants to take as much as it can, wholly without regard for what impact this has on us. it is like racism, in that we all have been tainted to some extent in this culture, no matter how insistent we are to ourselves that such things do not live in us. let us acknowledge that it is there, and then address it from there, in all things unsavory. you can do like most, and pretend the rot is not there. you can even get used to the smell, especially if those around you are full of rot as well. or you can admit it's there and try to clean it up.