The night smells of liquor and oil and heat and vice. The signs make the bartender out to be a saint, glowing with neon aura, looking to give to those in need. Those too gluttonous, too prideful, too lustful, too much disgust to fit into their own skins by daylight. They turn to excess by night, dawning the cloak of social life so that they might have excuse for such behavior. Vivid eyes and exaggerated gestures give their rotting flesh the appearance of vibrant life.
Outside these monoliths to pleasure stand men who will sleep on benches, in the small green spaces that litter the town's grid. These men who are broken in spirit, beaten by circumstances or their own inaction, either way their only wish can be summed up as otherwise or else or not this. Whatever the case, I see now and not their past. When they ask for change, tears swell in their eyes from defeat, humiliation, regret and sorrow.
But they will go unnoticed. A multitude pass them by willfully ignorant of their state or with some assumption they are all the same - and by same they mean deadbeats. This man with not but a flannel and jeans and a toboggan, in a night of subfreezing temperatures. What would go towards your night of the living dead you could use to bring someone back to life.
The whole town wreaks of bad decisions, of moral corrosion, of children dressed up in adults' clothing. I imagine each as toddlers, caught by a parent arriving home, found in the closet, dressing up like mother or father. Now is the same, except their will has turned to self-destruction. It's merely a "good" time or time for "friendship" or a "necessary" release of stress, whatever they mean by such things. One might question them, but I've given up such endeavors, for my desire to know someone is always greeted as being too zealous or strange. There are indubitably those living who walk amongst the dead, and I have been amongst both before, so I do not discount all, but merely a certain lot. You know, "that lot."
They never give sufficient meanings for their words, but the more I press in, the more disturbed they become. Hatred for me grows heavier with every word and at the end of my point I'll smile. They'll interpret my smile as "checkmate" though I meant no such thing. Empty conversations, empty nights, empty acquaintances, empty, empty, empty. It's as if I took to elaborately describing the most sensational, spectacular, bright, vivacious, aquamarine hondlebark. "Well I don't know what it means, but I do mean it," is how I'll reformulate their argument for clarity. At this realization they'll become visibly irritated. Such discussions are much too real for a night of "fun." One must never give into reality when trying to relieve stress, for this is escapism, and what is that but trying to think of things as otherwise. But in all the possibilities in all the worlds, why choose this, the one you live by tonight?
I tire of overgrown children. No moral responsibility for actions, no responsibility for any actions. They wish for freedom but know not how to use it. They wish for respect but disrespect themselves through their actions. They justify each by the other and come to the most absurd of conclusions, which one cannot ween them from since they've grown so attached to nonsense that reason is something foreign to them. They greet reason as an enemy and unknowingly pick it up to slay this, their opponent. "This should be amusing," I'll think, and initiate my first line of questioning. They are closer to animals in what they seek, and closer to plants in their familiarity with reason.
Help me Lord, for I am apt to shut off to the lot of them. Even now I take to judging, which has me disgusted with myself. But that's the difference isn't it? I am disgusted because I see reasons for such, but those don't see them, and this is what accounts for their lack of civility and self-control. I have not mastered such things, but at least I seek to. If my prayer could be counted as one of the righteous, put a desire for the divine in their thoughts and hearts, otherwise they should not learn until experience has bested them. For they cry out to make their own decisions and to experience things themselves rather than listen to others, but one day experience's baggage will come to fill up every closet and nook and will have to be shoved under beds and hidden in pantries. They will hold to the lesson, but fear the memories should escape their hiding places, and bring back the shame with them. They should not wish to forget what they have learned but wish to put away the teacher altogether. But how does one remember the effect without the cause? We might store it away where it is unseen, but it is still there, clawing at the back of your mind, till death do you part.
But enough of them. I tire of being tired of them, and my cheerios are finished.
Outside these monoliths to pleasure stand men who will sleep on benches, in the small green spaces that litter the town's grid. These men who are broken in spirit, beaten by circumstances or their own inaction, either way their only wish can be summed up as otherwise or else or not this. Whatever the case, I see now and not their past. When they ask for change, tears swell in their eyes from defeat, humiliation, regret and sorrow.
But they will go unnoticed. A multitude pass them by willfully ignorant of their state or with some assumption they are all the same - and by same they mean deadbeats. This man with not but a flannel and jeans and a toboggan, in a night of subfreezing temperatures. What would go towards your night of the living dead you could use to bring someone back to life.
The whole town wreaks of bad decisions, of moral corrosion, of children dressed up in adults' clothing. I imagine each as toddlers, caught by a parent arriving home, found in the closet, dressing up like mother or father. Now is the same, except their will has turned to self-destruction. It's merely a "good" time or time for "friendship" or a "necessary" release of stress, whatever they mean by such things. One might question them, but I've given up such endeavors, for my desire to know someone is always greeted as being too zealous or strange. There are indubitably those living who walk amongst the dead, and I have been amongst both before, so I do not discount all, but merely a certain lot. You know, "that lot."
They never give sufficient meanings for their words, but the more I press in, the more disturbed they become. Hatred for me grows heavier with every word and at the end of my point I'll smile. They'll interpret my smile as "checkmate" though I meant no such thing. Empty conversations, empty nights, empty acquaintances, empty, empty, empty. It's as if I took to elaborately describing the most sensational, spectacular, bright, vivacious, aquamarine hondlebark. "Well I don't know what it means, but I do mean it," is how I'll reformulate their argument for clarity. At this realization they'll become visibly irritated. Such discussions are much too real for a night of "fun." One must never give into reality when trying to relieve stress, for this is escapism, and what is that but trying to think of things as otherwise. But in all the possibilities in all the worlds, why choose this, the one you live by tonight?
I tire of overgrown children. No moral responsibility for actions, no responsibility for any actions. They wish for freedom but know not how to use it. They wish for respect but disrespect themselves through their actions. They justify each by the other and come to the most absurd of conclusions, which one cannot ween them from since they've grown so attached to nonsense that reason is something foreign to them. They greet reason as an enemy and unknowingly pick it up to slay this, their opponent. "This should be amusing," I'll think, and initiate my first line of questioning. They are closer to animals in what they seek, and closer to plants in their familiarity with reason.
Help me Lord, for I am apt to shut off to the lot of them. Even now I take to judging, which has me disgusted with myself. But that's the difference isn't it? I am disgusted because I see reasons for such, but those don't see them, and this is what accounts for their lack of civility and self-control. I have not mastered such things, but at least I seek to. If my prayer could be counted as one of the righteous, put a desire for the divine in their thoughts and hearts, otherwise they should not learn until experience has bested them. For they cry out to make their own decisions and to experience things themselves rather than listen to others, but one day experience's baggage will come to fill up every closet and nook and will have to be shoved under beds and hidden in pantries. They will hold to the lesson, but fear the memories should escape their hiding places, and bring back the shame with them. They should not wish to forget what they have learned but wish to put away the teacher altogether. But how does one remember the effect without the cause? We might store it away where it is unseen, but it is still there, clawing at the back of your mind, till death do you part.
But enough of them. I tire of being tired of them, and my cheerios are finished.
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