.

let the veil drop, however brief its fall.
this will be a self-indulgent piece and hardly poetic,
but so be it because at some point along the way
I just stopped living and although it`s true that in
the past few years things have not been easy, it
was a gradual shutting-down. nothing I would
ever have consciously planned for or predicted
or thought myself capable of. perhaps there
were one too many roadblocks along the way
that ultimately added up to a particular kind
of incredulity, or maybe one too many encounters
with all-about-me egos getting in my way (and
me seccumbing, naively wanting to think the best
of people). whatever the confluence, all of it
ultimately wore me down. in looking back, what
I find most irreconcilable is cruelty, calculated or
not, but deliberately directed at others and of the
kind that mocks and taunts, that weighs alliances
against alliances for the game of waging war. call
me weak but I finally had to shut the doors rather
than deal with its ego-manaical shrapnel. suffice it
to say that I no longer have patience for people
who have anger management issues. fuck that.
and if it became all-too-much all-at-once, if my
skewed perspective gradually let the fog of
impenetrability settle all around me, protecting
me from clarity, walling me in and leaving me numb,
flat-line living became a habit. fog on fog.

but today, I wish to thank J for his encouraging words
even though he will probably never read this. he can't
know what his comments meant to me, simple though
they were and amazingly well-timed. I am also not yet
certain if I will leave this post up for long. but if I do,
I know it won't impart value to anyone who reads it.
call it catharsis, or more likely, call it gratitude, to J
for being willing to see potential, still, after all this time,
and for reminding me that one is only limited by one's
imagination`. his were words I needed to hear even if
he couldn't know their impact. intangible gifts caught
in the ether.

so how does one find a way back up after falling off a cliff?
after living in its flat-line shadow for so long? not sure.
but hope is a choice.