Can I be perfectly honest? (like who’s gonna stop you, dummy?)
I don’t have a fucking clue who I am or why I’m here, and I try not to think about that too much. The first time it sunk home, I was…13? 14? Some-teen. Anyway, it was evening, and Mom and I and sibling had just gotten home. I was sitting in the living room on the floor and suddenly the question slammed home, like the self-centered, narcissist scales fell away from my consciousness and I gaped into the null.
Like thinking about hell- an eternity of suffering…. (some might think that’s heaven dummy.)
Anyway, I sat their with this profound -it felt at the time- thought floating through my head and right out my lips without me being aware of it. I was startled when Mom answered me.
Her response? God. To serve. God.
And this is where I get sacrilegious. I got mad. No, I was furious. Who was she to glibly respond to this deep question with a trite response that was the answer for everything.
Why did people suffer? To serve god’s will.
Why do children die? Because it’s god’s will.
Why is this world such a shitty place? Because we went against god’s will and it is now god’s will that we survive in this shitty place called the world because at one point, god said it was good for man to wallow in his own filth.
It’s a great way to get god’s will across.
Gahhh!!!!
As a some-teen, I wasn’t exactly articulate on these points. Mostly I got pissed, stomped to my room, and tried not to scream obscenities.
As far as I know, I’ve come no closer to answering the question of why I’m here. I’m here because I haven’t moved yet. I plan to. Oh, I have plans to maximize this untethered point of my life and sail away like a kite.
Get the hell out of dodge.
Snip the ball and chain and just go. I’ve got something in my blood: nomadic, Romani, wanderer, outcast, cursed like Cain with the desire to wander about without rest. Misery when in one place too long, misery to be alone, misery to be together. A porcupine can’t huddle with other porcupines.
(How would you know, dummy, you missed that Nat. Geo. episode.) What the fuck ever, bro!
Who I am? I can better tell who I’m not. I define myself by the negative.
As you may have guessed, I’m an X. X-christian, x-nice, x-pure, x-good, just an x in the sand. I’m a lot of things now that some people dislike. I don’t care about pleasing people anymore, I don’t make offerings of my soul to sacrifice for their amusement. I don’t follow, and I don’t trust. I’ve been led astray too often to track after a shepherd.
Better to be a stubborn goat. They live longer.
(They also taste better.) Shut up, not like you’d know.
I am myself, and that’s all there is to it. There is much I want to improve on the outside, but that’s malleable. There is some I want to improve on the inside, but I’ll need to grow some discipline first. Some self-sufficiency would be apt.
I laugh a lot. I am aware of the misconception that it causes, but that’s fine. Be dazzled by the veneer. Like a shiny funhouse, it’s all fun and games on the outside, and sinister mazes on the inside.
(Survival of the fittest.)
I’m not the star in my life, I’m not the main character in my own story. I know this, as certainly as I know that humans need oxygen to live. I play second, third, fourth fiddle, never first. The limelight is for some other fool. I live best in the shadow, cloaked by my insignificance. That is where I shine.
I am opalflame.
(We are here for the shadows.)
I know that… dummy.
DO. FEEL. BE. 