Laughter

I heard a child laugh today
Peals of unadulterated laughter
Her small body swallowed by bellows of joy


Her voice reached into my world and caressed my mind
Assuring me that color would someday return
to the dull washed out pages of my life


Then there was silence
And I was left with fragments of jarring joy
Bits of untethered emotion

And as the joy floated up beyond my reach
I remembered that I lost my joy
The day I gave up life

Rape

I was a child when we met

You a decade or so my senior and I a newly considered legal adult

You raped my mind and then you raped my body

You twisted my mind around your own and used your cleverness to reach upon my weaknesses

you convinced me to go to a secluded house in the country with you that I later learned was some sort of home for troubled men from Hassidic communities

You convinced me that your sperm had some kind of godly property, and that if it would enter me all of my mental pain would be healed

I believed you

I lay there unmoving and unprotected and I let you rape me

You then told me to leave, and I did

Death (May 12, 2013)

When I was a child I saw death

                                                           A glowing mass of fire

            A smooth sphere of smoldering stone

I reached out and felt the warmth

Emanating from the fiery depths

                                               Warmed my fingers in the light

I was cold

Reached out to flickering flames

                                              Trying to feel

                                                                                    Time passes

                                                                                                     I grow closer to the fire

                                                                           Away from cold clammy earth

Flushed with warmth

           I touch the globe of fire

                                                                                  Sizzling flesh

Skin heals leaving only scars

           And memories of burning in flames

                           Yet I am still cold

So I grab hold of the fire

      And I am warmed

                                         But burned

Scars on scars

         Red welts that never heal

              Comforted by the light

Fire is my friend

                  The warmth of touch

                                              Felt through burning skin

Far below me

                                                                                                                                         A person with no eyes

                                                                                                                          Asks me how I feel

                                                                                                   A cold body

                                                                                                   Far away

                                                                               Out of reach

                                                                                                    I stroke the warm glowing orb beside me

                                                                                                                                                            And smile

Poem By 16-year-old Self
(7/24/2006)

Is war a man's plaything
knocking down building blocks
caving in to crush them
plastic faces smiling
stiff bodies are frozen
Eyes that wont ever close
stop!

They want to shut it out,
yet it keeps on falling.
Thinking it will end soon,
yet someone continues,
crushing, grinding, breaking.
Who?

Evil that never ends,
keeps it all from going,
thirsty for your fresh blood.
sucking on your bare bones.
What?

So it all continues,
no side ever wins,
in this child's play
Toys!

Giggling children gleeful
They're holding up their loot
content.

Destruction continues
Why?

Thou Shalt Not Lie

I am lying on a blue rubber mattress on the floor and waiting for the endless night to end. I want to pull the thin white sheet over my face to block the ever-glaring light, but I cannot lower my clenched hands from above my head, for that would lead the man who is perpetually hovering in his seat above me to shout: “I need to see your hands” and I am tired of his shouting. The cameras need the light so they can unblinkingly record my every move, or lack thereof, and so that others can watch me on the grid of screens that exist somewhere beyond my reach.

I am bound inside this spotless cubicle, and cannot breathe deeply or shift to another part of the mattress without the man’s head turning and his eyes widening. I don’t like to see those eyes as they stare through me and beyond my naked, sheet covered body, beyond my unwashed hair and uncovered feet. The man lifts his pen, yawns, and scrawls an illegible note onto my psychiatric supervision form that will later be put into my patient file.

With my inert body surrounded by blank walls, I am left with only my thoughts. These thoughts are unexpectedly calm and peaceful, and although each idea winds tenaciously in circles around my mind, I feel free. I think of the absurdity of my feelings of freedom, for I am confined by an endless series of locks and cameras.

Just yesterday I got off a bus and walked into my school to attempt, once again, the daily feat of absorbing endless bits of useless information being tossed at me. Perhaps it was a week ago, or even a month ago. Ever since I entered this white room, time has blurred into an indistinguishable smudge.

I was standing at the back corner of the library among the many swaying bodies. At first I stopped swaying, then I stopped moving my mouth, and then I ceased to deliberately turn each page in my siddur. Yet even as I randomly flipped between unread pages, I stood up, bowed down, and took three steps towards God.

I closed my eyes knowing that an onlooker would see me as devoutly squinting at the sacred text in front of me. Yet lost in a reverie I must have remained standing for too long until I was alone in the room. Forgetting the concluding steps, I fled. I put the siddur back onto the shelf, making sure it was upside down.

When I lugged my massive binder into class, it felt unusually heavy. Not only because I had to place a special order to procure this unreasonably large industrial item, but because I carried this item everywhere, until eventually it gave me a perpetual stoop. The people around me were too busy carrying their own similarly unreasonable industrial items, and so I didn’t need to worry about creating banal banter.

It was fitting that I was shackled to this great monolith that was now filled with endless biblical scribbles. The margins of my notes were covered in questions. I questioned the meaning of life and the truth of the seemingly-illogical information that I was being fed. I also questioned why “t” had to be written with a small tail, lest this letter be mistaken as a cross. I questioned why I needed to acknowledge God in small lettering on the corner of each page, and why I needed to kiss dusty and extremely unhygienic books. I did not desist from this kissing practice, but I made sure to accidentally pile my chemistry notes atop these holy books.

I knew that my small and comical mutinies were inconsequential. I had to continue to lie and pretend to be pious and righteous. I was pulled down and trapped into empty actions and words while my mind revolted. I knew that eventually the thoughts boiling inside me would burst from beneath my fake facade, wreaking havoc in their wake.
Right before I entered this small room I realized that I could no longer live this lie. The divide between my thoughts and actions had grown so great that I felt as if I was being torn apart. Despite my awareness of the incongruity of my being, the line between who I was and who I appeared to be was tenuous, and so my thoughts were muddled. I did not know how to end one life and embrace another, so I tried to kill both of them.

In giving up on life and entering into this small bare room I lost ownership of my body, my movements, and my privacy. Yet with this loss I have allowed my thoughts to erupt. While these thoughts envelop my body and take over my mind, I know that someday in the wake of this tumult I will build a life from this act of death. I have pretended for so long, that without my mask I don’t know who I am. I will have to create my own being, and form a new face from this shapeless slab of clay.  Yet despite my uncertainty of mind and my captive body, I am no longer liable for my profane thoughts or actions, nor do I need to pretend to pray. I no longer have to lie, and I am therefore free.

The Game That is Life

I watch people doing ordinary things. They do what everyone does, that is they engage in the usual exchanges that people call life. They eat and buy and talk and sleep. I try to do those same things. But I don’t seem to be very good at it.

I thought I was finally getting a hang of this life thing. For a while I am happy, and I enjoy going about these ordinary actions. But then something happens; something always happens that reminds me of my eventual death.

Then I start to play a game. I pretend to be an ordinary person, and perform all of the necessary ordinary actions. If I play my part well, then I am able to satisfy the people around me.

Yet I hate playing this pointless game. No matter how skilled of a player I am, I cannot falsify my dreams. So I find different locations to settle my body at. I sit or walk about in a daze until I decide to shift my body to a different location.

I do not like this game. I would much prefer death to this endless empty life. Yet it is against the rules to end the game. Death is the ultimate pain and betrayal and loss. And if I bring this inevitable death upon myself I will have brought about a great and immovable pain onto those around me.

People around me are convinced of their own immortality, and they go about life believing death to be a distant and unreal concept. Yet I go about life preoccupied with the ephemeral nature of my being. And when I keep the end of life in sight I cannot help but view life as an absurd and torturous game.

Why can’t I lose myself in these actions know as life? I manage to forget death for a while, but then I find myself plunged again into the eternal emptiness of life.

I think that I am most likely broken. While I can falsify most of the expected actions of life, I cannot pretend to feel passion for this empty game. If I were created in a factory I would have been discarded as a damaged good. They wouldn’t have been able to find a broken gear or missing part inside of me, yet they would have realized that some irregularity ruined me.

Sometimes I try to find a spark within me that will be able to light a flame of passion for the life that I am bound to. But I know that once I feed this fire it may set my being ablaze and consume me. So I continue to play this game. Perhaps for a time I will be able forget that my being is simply a passing whim. Yet until then I continue shifting my body from place to place and going about the necessary motions of life.

Pain

I sometimes feel like there is an invisible barrier dividing me from the word. I exist on one side, and on the other side are all of the people who have not felt my pain. When I exist next to the "other person" I can sense a divide. This wall can’t be seen or heard, but it is always there in the back of my mind.

You, who know of my pain, is a comrade of a sorts. You understand why people talk of madness, and why they always deem the madman a dangerous uncontrollable being. I can smell their fear. The only way that they can coexist with such a great pain is to call it evil. Some instinctual part of them knows that if they touch the pain then they will be consumed.
Now to see this you must go beyond that thick rubbery coat of lies. You must hack off the mask of tolerance and kindness. Underneath there resides that fear of pain.

What is that pain?

I think you already know what it is.
I will tell you how it feels.
It slowly encroaches, and then it suddenly takes hold of me. It consumes me and becomes me. I no longer exist, for my being is unable to withstand the raging heat emanating from its core.

When I am the pain I sometimes bring an image into my mind. It is a metaphor of my pain, as this pain is too strong to be defined. My pain is a fire, and I am at the center of this great conflagration. The flames lick at my skin and feed off of my flesh. My being will slowly turn to ashes and dust in order to allow the flame to live on.

There is a moment while my body is burning that I am able to call up an image to placate my slowly dying body. So I choose to take a long silver dagger and to plunge it into me. I rip my flesh and pull myself apart. The blood and the sharp biting mouth of the dagger is the greatest comfort to me. Because it turns my pain into a tangible form that is kindly inviting when compared to the pain.

Now you may call me crazy or mad, but I think that you are simply afraid. If you accept my words for true, then you will be acknowledging the pain. And if you touch that flame, it will consume you. You are wise to call it madness.

The Burden of Guilt

God has tied me to Guilt. This burden is so heavy that I cannot free myself from its tenacious grasp. Guilt is the parasite that drinks my blood and draws upon my breaths. Sometimes I cannot breathe as I feel guilt crushing my chest. And then when I am finally able to draw a breath, it is Guilt that beats within me.

Sometimes I wish that I could stand before all of the people in my life and tell them the story of my Guilt. I would talk of all that makes me evil and of all the depraved and wicked things that I have done. Yet such a fantasy would be useless, for I must confess to God. It is God who has given me this massive burden, and somehow it is God who must take this burden away. Yet God no longer exists for me. He remains only as a shadow of my past. So you see that I am faced with a conundrum. It is only God who can take away the Guilt that he has given to me.

When I was very young God was able to sow the seed of Guilt within my heart. I knew with all of the certainty of my small mind that God existed. For I believed as all children do that my mother was perfect. My mother told me that God was real, and so I believed that God existed with the same sureness that I believed in my mother’s perfection. It was then that God placed guilt inside of me.

God does not exist, yet only he can cut the Guilt out from me. My Guilt continues to grow, and it has become a monster. It lives inside me, and it has almost destroyed me. I have tried to cut out the Guilt over and over. Yet after creating a hole and draining out the blood the Guilt simply grows.

If I could believe in God for one moment then I would be able to remove my Guilt. I would kill God, and with this death the guilty beast within me would vanish. Yet God can never be more than an idea from my past. And so I remain shackled to my Guilt.

The Trap of Truth

From the moment you were born, you were fed ideas about the nature of reality. You were taught that certain names belong to certain shapes, and that standing on the table and pulling down your pants isn't OK while your family is eating dinner. You were told that the reason you were born was to fulfill God's will. Just as your parents brought you into existence, you will bring your children into existence. You will live as God wants you to live. You are part of God's chosen people, and as such you have the great task of performing his will.

The role that has been given to you ascribes a TRUTH to life. It creates THE TRUTH of life. And if you dare to question this great TRUTH, you are left with nothing. For that is the nature of those enormous weighty TRUTHs. They stand as great monuments, and no matter where you are in life you need only turn your head to know which direction to travel. Yet if you choose to walk away from the chosen path, your monumental rock becomes a sepulchre mourning the death of the person who you used to be.

You have decided that the TRUTH is not in fact true. Yet can a mere moral create a new monument of TRUTH to follow? I think not, for we are simply too limited to create such wonders. You could try, but when you have completed this great task, you will realize that all this time you have merely been building your own tomb.

You are left with the many small truths of the common folk; those who don't claim to be the progeny of kings. But can you bear to live a life without direction? How are you to know if you are traveling the path towards happiness? You must choose small pebbles and with them form the path of your life. Yet can you settle for bits of gravel after once following a mountainous rock?

Alas, that is the trap of TRUTH. Once you have given up the TRUTH, all small truths seem so petty. Your hastily formed path may lead to wondrous things. Yet to find out you must turn from the mountain that is TRUTH. You must risk pain and failure and most of all uncertainty. Do you dare to turn away from the TRUTH?

-I Am The Madman

Who Is The Madman?

From Friederich Nietzsche's The Gay Science, Book 3, 125 -

Have you heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly, “I seek God! I seek God” - As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. “Has he got lost,” asked one. “Did he lose his way like a child,” asked another. “Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? Emigrated?” -Thus they yelled and laughed.

The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. “Whither is God,” he cried; “I will tell you. We have killed him - you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained the earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.”

“How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe the blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us - for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto.”

Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they, too, were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke into pieces and went out. “I have come too early,” he said then; “my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than the most distant stars - and yet they have done it themselves.”

It has been related further that on the same day the madman forced his way into several churches and there struck up his requiem aeternam deo. Led out and called to account, he is said always to have replied nothing but: “What after all are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?”