To Tell the Truth

at least about yourself, is usually a double-edged sword. A swift, clean, beautifully efficient sword. There is no purpose behind this post other than to tell the truth as it comes out, as I know it, which is through words. This is not the truth of my immediacy, but it has been my truth and probably will be again...hopefully not if I am strong enough to resist the tides.

November 9, 2008

Shovel it under. Load upon load of wet black earth. I work through the work and shovel it under, the gem, the life, the voice that keeps me what I am. I work hard, and steadfast. I never allow questions. I shovel it under. The voice is almost completely silent now. Even when I wish to hear if it were still alive, the most I can hear is the din of its silence, reminding me that I silenced it.

What am I to do? Surviving in the world, I must know. Surviving in the cosmos, I really have to know. And yet the questions can’t be asked. Yet the shovel is lighter the stronger I get. Load upon load I shovel it under. The din reminds me that where there is silence there should be shrieking. I never know how to let it out without destroying something precious, so I shovel it under. The stars, they know.

They watch everything. When I was young I saw the face of the man in the moon, but everyone said it was a smiling face, and I saw it was not. I saw a face grave with sorrow and melancholy, always watching something on earth, someone hurting their brother. Someone hurting themselves. People betraying themselves as I am doing with each lift of the shovel. Load upon load I bury the light.

Now it is almost completely dark. Now it is almost completely silent. There is no peace, because once someone has committed murder they never forget it. Never for one moment can you be unaware of this treachery you have committed, this crime against the force behind your heartbeat. It is a crime to waste it. I go outside in the afternoons and I see it wasted until I come home in the evenings and pick up my shovel. In the days I imagine things could be better. I push through the pain in my bones to stretch them further, to balance solid through the pain of gravity, to make something beautiful, something impossible from my youth.

This is the only reason I am not completely fallen. I have been fighting for something I know is good, even though the way I know it is become buried under the black weight of deny deny deny. The black, wet, moist solidity of avoidance.

I am very careful. I make sure that when you see it from the outside I look as I always have, fighting in the fields for the crops to grow, when in fact I am only burying them. Load upon load I shovel it under.

I know better. Every fiber of my body and mind tells me I know better. My body screams out in a rage and makes me feverish and tired. But I am very careful. I give it what it needs, and so I coax it into silence again.

It wouldn’t be the first time. The grand old duchess in her maiden gowns, the homeless people that disgust me on the streets, the piles of vomit that fill me with hatred, they are all because of the shovel. How can I take part in such beastliness?

Easy. It is designed to be easy. It is designed to be nearly undetectable.

...............
Have you ever wondered why, if the Gods that create us wish for us to be sentient, awake, worthy vessels of creative force, is it so difficult to remain so, and so easy to half-sleep? It wouldn't be worthy if it weren't hard enough to hurt sometimes. It means you really, really have to want it. Everything is by design. So what becomes of us when we wake up to find a shovel in our hands?

Rebel.