Fear of Falling

Of all my myriad fears, real and imagined, the worst has always been losing you. And yet, I stand upon the edge of a precipice and I tremble at the chasm that splits the earth between us. For all my vaunted words, I have nothing to say. Nothing right, at any rate. Nothing to bridge that canyon and bring you back to me. Perhaps, finally, I have nothing left to offer you. It's been said that I could talk anyone into love with me, but maybe that, like all the warmest things, is only temporary. Perhaps I'm more magician than anything, casting my illusions until I've no energy left to maintain them and they fall away like dissipated smoke and shattered mirrors.

I feel something, some way, but I can't say with any certainty what it might be. I'm jealous, to be certain. Jealous of myself, or my past self. He, at least, felt less like the jagged egde of something meant only for slicing, shedding blood, destroying. He knew what it felt like to build something with these hands.

My hands are harder now. Once, I touched everyone as a lover. Now, the only sincerity I feel in touching another is the sincere desire to crush between my fingers what might, one day, be powerful enough to wound me. The only pleasure I feel in a touch is the knowing that, before long, it will be over.

Revulsion rises in my throat. Hot, acidic, burning away the lining until bile and bits of flesh spell into my mouth, catch in my teeth, and become trapped there. Never expelled, just filled to the cusp. Nausea blossoms like horrid orchids in my esophagus, chokes my larynx, fills my lungs, and nothing ever comes out.

I fill my guts with poison and I'm thankful the gods allow me at least that reprieve. I've never sought substance as a crutch, but I'd rather have the crutch than face anything more on my own two feet. My legs, I find, are tired of standing.

Perhaps I'll drown. That, I think, would be a suitably archaic way to go. I've always figured the day I found the best way to die would be the day I actually died. The only question, then, was which came first, the finding or the dying? I nearly drowned once, as a child, and since then I have reserved both a fascination and a terror of it. Odd, now, that the things I hold most dear have been swept out of my hands and I am left treading in something deeper, more sinister, than any water man has ever laid eyes on.

I feel like shards of porcelain just held together by a thin layer of flesh. No muscle or sinew. The bones, porcelain, and the organs too. All of it crushed to sharp little needles and held in place more by habit and force of will than anything else. My bowels are lined with bits of glass. I, myself, am a mass of convulsions, smatterings of agony here and there, shifting with each step.

I've tried to find comfort in rage. That has always been a sanctuary from this. No matter what other feeling wound its way into me, rage was always my solace. The one thing capable of burning away everything else and leaving me...blank, if not precisely cleansed. But there is none to be had. No comfort and no rage left in me. That old well has finally, perhaps permenantly, run dry.

All the loves and lovers I have left behind will say, have said, that they were the ones that broke me, but I wonder if I ever let them close enough to put that kind of knife in me. Some days, I wish I knew myself half as well as I think I do. There are parts of a man that, once broken, can never be as they were. Old flames and romances will claim to be the Great Destroyer, but I think they flatter themselves. Anything with that kind of potential would have to be cast aside before it grew. Doing otherwise would be suicide,right?

And yet, here we are. Opposite sides of this chasm. I'm curious how it makes you feel, whether you even notice that the passage of time has ripped me so far away from you. Or do the phantoms of me that I've left behind suffice? Am I better in memory or in reality?

Am I even dear enough to command that sort of rememberance?

There is something to be said about one-sided affections. Unfortunately, I'm not interested in thinking about it, much less saying it.

What if I just jumped? If this is all a metaphor, then I should be able to leap this fucking chasm and land beside you, where I belong. What's the worst that could happen?

Fear is for the weak.

Alone,
-S.R.

The Price of Freedom

We Americans take our patriotism, like most everything else we do, entirely too seriously. Now, I'm not going to bash America or even the people who live here. Thor knows, I'm one of those people and self-deprecation, while fun, isn't really useful in proving a point. Let it be known that I think this country is a fine place to live and raise a family, for the most part. And Americans are a great group of people, for the most part.

Except the ones who self-identify as patriots.

Here's the thing about it: You walk a very fine line between patriotism and bigotry. Find someone out there that calls himself a patriot (most of them are men or middle-aged, married women with husbands that call themselves patriots) and I'll bet you dollars to ball-bags he also hates other countries. Not in the flaming, racist, burn-a-cross sort of way. He just doesn't like them because he's seen some shit on Fox News or the Blue Collar Comedy tour that has inspired him to believe that America is the best and there is no close second. Rather, the rest of the world are half-wits playing in their own excrement that would literally set themselves on fire if Papa America didn't show up every now and again to save the day.

I see no problem with being proud of where you're from. Unless that pride makes you look down on where other people are from. Then, I see that you're an asshole.

This mostly stems from the idea that people insist on telling me our troops overseas are fighting for our freedoms. Look, that just isn't true. But, before you lynch me, let me explain my point.

Those men and women over there are doing something arguably more honorable than fighting for your freedom. They're fighting so other people, people with a different heritage, different customs and traditions and languages, can share your freedoms. To fight for our freedoms, they'd have to be fighting someone that is directly seeking to oppress us. Let's face it, that's not the case. Terrorists don't want to oppress us, they want to kill us because we threaten something they hold dear: batshit insanity. I wouldn't dream of justifying what that type of person does. But by telling me our soldiers are dying for me, personally, you're actually trivializing their secrifices.

See, those people, or rather the people that ordered them over there (we'll touch on this later) are doing something much bigger than making you able to protest at their funerals or call the president and threaten his life because he smokes a different brand of cigarettes. They're protecting perfect strangers that would otherwise be completely helpless. They're actually doing what you keep telling me America does for the world. Sure, it isn't the entire world we're helping. But, to be honest, a lot of the world is just fine. A little different, sure, but just fine all the same.

So, seriously, eat a dick.

My other problem is with the inherent patriotism of soldiering. I like soldiers. I like war. I think that's a great career path to pursue. Probably not for me, because I like to smoke and drink and I'm pretty lazy, but for some people I have no doubt it rocks. But that's just it, it's a job. I'd be willing to bet that far less than half of our armed forces members joined up because of their high ideals of defending freedom, duty, and country. More of them joined up because its a well-paying job that offers job-security in a shitty economy, unrivaled health benefits (unless you get blown up) and a whole slew of other, admittedly awesome, perks. Sure, there are downsides. Any job has those. My whole point here is that it is, in fact, a job.

Of course, after a time they may come to believe in those patriotic things. By then they're usually douchebags, too. Weird how those changes come at the same time.

Which makes another valid point. By telling me that every soldier joined up because his DNA is striped red, white, and blue you're actually minimalizing what the military has to offer. It isn't all gung-ho America. Some of it is, you know, actual work. Like, difficult work. Like, all the shit that goes into soldiering. The logistics, the supplies, the transports, and so on. No one decides they're going to spend three months in AIT learning to coordinate the movements of large shipments of pre-packed meals because they love America. They're doing it because it's a good skill to have in the work place and they're guaranteed a fucking job.

Overall, what I'm saying is, you self-identified patriots are really only good at two things: oversimplification and providing examples of why our school system is rapidly falling behind countries that are still hurling rocks at each other.

Read a book, nigga.

Love and kisses,
-S.R.