People are going to be afraid of you.
Every day, I pull myself out of bed. There is only one thought in my mind: Today, maybe you will forgive me.
One day, I will not be able to remember my own name.
I will not need to regret having regrets: there will be none for me to know.
Everyone gives up on me, so I’ve given up on everybody.
I’ve been drawing a lot of elephants. We used to be like
elephants, striding in a pack filed neatly and tied at the tails. Rotten hemp
tethers splintered apart so now things are less substantial. Photo-evading blue
pencil makes comfort images like a coastal landscape of Oregon by Mount Saint
Helen’s.
Saint Helen’s what? Maybe the way I think is too possessive.
Nobody says outright, “People are going to be afraid of
you”, or in active phrasing “You are going to frighten people”. Because it’s
not a comforting thought like your mother or favorite teachers would console
you with when things go a bit wrong. Most of people’s problems tend to involve
oneself and not a wider audience. There is no immediate threat, no reason to be
threatened. But if there’s hurt at stake then whoever is aware is going to try
and avoid feeling responsible.
I first became an atheist, as I'd been born a Catholic. The
second revealed me no answers; the first would not make truth. So I
taste-tested everything and when, having finished, I found myself none too
satiated by the table’s offerings, held my breath.
So dire, these straits have become. I was strained at the waist, pulled taut
from the earth like some root shaped like a young boy.
Mother and Father taught me that love is a true thing. You
handle it with gentle weight like you mark the ivory key of a piano.
People are going to be afraid of you.