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Waiting on me is the giant hand that I can’t get my eyes around, he grasps my tiny instrument of speech in his harlequin grip. I say my thoughts before I think them, if this be the case. Stupid people in masks parading down my chin, jumping across my mind and crawling through the crevasses of my brain. Massage the frowning muscles, the critic’s finger aches from my eerie stare. I launch my silent assault at him down his own wrist, and as the icy fingers travel up his spine, he realizes that this is no ordinary glutton. Semicolons separate the nails from the buttons in the hard, hard existence of existentialism. Fire hardened mouths and ears, they’re charcoal to the touch, and at a glance they’d kill you just to watch you bleed forever. They’d spare you just to watch you struggle and laugh at yourself when bad things happen. Memories driven mad by repeated use, worn thin and bent over the hood of your jacket. You made your hands strong so you could take away from me. You worked on it for a long time, but you finally got to the point where you’d never have to fight again. But just when you made it, it became slightly more difficult. We all hid underground, and for seven years we listened to something not right on the other side of the door. You gave yourself away so you wouldn’t have to watch them take you from yourself. They picked us off one by one and we backed up and up. We fought for our lives, but we were disillusioned; we were already dead. All except for one, and we all watched him give his every fiber for you all and your thoughts. When they finally came bursting through en masse they took all our work skillfully and reservedly, for they knew they didn’t care, and that’s what made them guilty. We watched them and we fought, all the way down to the depths of our god forsaken fingers. Our arms were stubs from work, and our necks were scarred by their collars; we’d never have another more glorious day than when they killed us all. I was the last to die. Written October 2nd, 2001 © on Oct 02 2001 02:32 PM PST   18 • 0 • 10