Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Hallowed Ground

This is my declaration, a clear statement of grievances, an open letter, as much for everyone as for no one at all.

None of this was ever going to be right. As always, though, blindness struck us all. We filled our closets with our concerns – so many unwanted step-children. We locked the doors. When they finally came out they were ghost-white, emaciated and speaking – in ungodly tongues – of fear, hope, confusion and weakness.

Of course, I can’t speak for you. I can only guess. But everyone is drawn to quiet graveyards and dim copses – places where things are continually laid to rest and brought into being. This contradiction strains the continuity of the underlying matrix, makes it unrecognizable.

These are the places where it all began. These are the places we always flock to, unsure of the virtue of our intentions, unmindful of things we’ve packed away. We go looking for someone… not those who are lost yet ever-present; we look for those who are still living. With luck, someone arrives – someone who can chase away our ghosts or, better yet, devour them. Yes… maybe they will consume our dormant ideals, our breathless expectations, and be nourished by them. In turn, we will also be nourished.

That’s who we want and who we want to be – someone who will grasp those brightly burning archetypes and give them faces, hands, hearts. But we easily over-reach. We breach our bounds and eventually find ourselves in fetters, anchored, our spleens perpetually vented and perpetually renewed.

That’s how I came to juggle the warmth of reason and the wrath of sentiment. And I’m not the only one; it’s a human condition. There can be no finger-pointing. Throw a stone, and you’re sure to hit a victim.

None of these insights help us. In fact, they make our footing less certain. And I built my home on these shifting sands. I wasn’t sure, I didn’t know, but it seemed right. But that ground shifted, and I became dislocated in my own house. I stepped outside and stayed behind. It was the right thing to do.

But, like an idiot, I left behind my possessions. When the creeping ground turned into a landslide, I found myself destitute. It’s a common disaster; it happens a thousand times a day to a thousand different people. It means everything in the world, and it means nothing at all.

I was even more foolish, though. I have a greater grievance against myself.

I hate myself. Of course, hating one’s self, in itself, is not so infamous a crime. It’s as common as jaywalking or littering, and – if creatively used – can become beautiful graffiti. But I continually perjured myself on this point. My defense is that it seemed obvious, in light of my flippant self-aggrandizement and smug charades.

I should wear this on my sleeve – for the sake of my lovers, my friends and myself. But all I have is silence, and my thoughts keep echoing back. In this way, a million imagined offenses surround me. I wanted to be rid of my ghosts just like everyone else. But, through avoidance, I’ve fed them. And they have possessed me. So, if I lash out, you should never be afraid. But feel free to be offended; I shamefully admit that this was only ever about me.

This is my airing of grievances – the start of my long exorcism. Sometimes our ghosts can be chased away or consumed – but not these. These spirits must be extracted and buried. They must be laid to rest where crippled logic and feeble molecules are reduced to base elements. There, they will lose all identity and meaning. Finally, with time, they will nourish that hallowed ground and give birth to worthier aspirations.