Far from above, just separate like any reservations held in fear

From A Pale Of Lights Below


I shy away from that upturned glare, afraid to be seen as coming down from above with all sorts of tablets and law...but I miss that glow I used to know, the shining in another set of eyes able to humble me with their love. But I sigh to myself, tell my heart no one should have to suffer empathy with a head so full of hope and hurt...and play on the phantom fears that are the folly of every crowd that crowns itself king, in apparition aspect that feeds their concerns about the strangers we all can be and never embraces or confronts the alien and alienating within. I was warned long before this how easily we're mistaken for our costumes and imitations, how many invitations will be rescinded if I let the madness show along with my bliss...and learned not to give a shit, especially for mentalities more infatuated with appearances that who we really are in thought, heart and faltering flesh.

I see you from miles away...or at least I think I do, that color true and the hue that haunts my longing with promises of more than being tricked into eternal sleep of emotion and reason. I'd pray for you to pass me by, if I thought you mistook me for any kind of god or supernatural messenger at all...but as an equal humbled by your humanity I can't help but hope to bridge all those gap-s in our mutual understanding, to come down from these clouds and be held on your earth like a fool worth loving. But I don't know how much held in my point of view is pure hallucination made by the wisps in my wishful thinking...and so I tell myself I'm far too accursed for your cleansing touch, that I'm nothing but the rot found in any coward at heart. There's nothing objective in my warnings and attempts to ward off the vulnerability you bring out in me...just the idiot subjective conviction I don't deserve to know or touch you, the kind that makes us do so little and regret so much.

I don't see how you could be afraid of me, in word and deed...but I have my biases and blind spots, especially when it comes to however I may be coming across. I hope whatever I have to share doesn't come across like the most scary aspects of desperation, that I don't seem willing to cling to anything or anyone as long as I don't drown. I'd rather go down alone that make anyone feel forced into being sucked into my vortex...I just wish I knew what the black hole within me was willing consume, whether it has ethical limits set on its appetite or only the all-consuming greed that has fuck-all to do with caring in the slightest. Indifference is far safer and easier, for all pretending to be so thoroughly unconcerned...but if I'm retreating into the fiction it doesn't matter to me....nothing does, and that might be just as it should be.

It's not up to me, what you decide to do....all I can allow myself to do is make arguments for all options available, and try not to avail myself of the temptation to slant the inquiry in ways that provide the answer I'd love to hear. My eyes turn gray with our dimming interest in risking, and the games play with our passion with such Nerf-tipped safety nothing touches me, nothing warms or cuts this placid surface. Please disturb it if you're willing...and curse me if you're certain I'm only a emotionally manipulative trickster exploiting your empathy. But if I haven't managed to frighten you off, if you can see the human and uncertain in me...come down with me, to the willows where we can weep and moan before returning to joy and laughter with our mouths open to each other. The forest isn't on fire, and I'm not nearly as hell-bound as my baying at the moon suggests...I'm just done with dumb-ass semantricks, eager to be seduced by sincerity and disdainful of the part of me eager to tell you whatever could convince you to trust this hunchbacked and hiding thing with your true self in any way. I see your eyes gleaming with repressed tears...and indecisively I wonder if you're happy or despairing to see me trembling in doubt, all the way up to where I must fly or fall.


Let me know whether you'd have me stay or go...Samuel Bear Davis...

Ummmm .. let me think .....

STAY!

I think that was my favorite one so far. We totally should talk.

...um...okay, I'm a good dog that way. Screwed up my last reply to yours, due to posting a music link I was unaware I couldn't share...but more than thank you, and do feel free to use whatever contact info I've provided previously. I should check and see if that reply went through, but if nothing else sambear71 at yahoo dot com is one way to get a hold of me, even when my connection gets shut off. (Comcast is far too expensive eventually) Very gladyou liked this bit of meta-fiction....it says far too much, but don't want to play myself off as having all the answers either. Just a seeker like you, both tempted to embrace what I could cherish and afraid to give hurt or provide disappointment. Currently trying to say "fuck it" about all those dancing fears...and grateful you're encouraging me to do so...

Yes, fuck it, indeed.

It's easy to say "too much" online. I think the introvert in me loves the seemingly risk-free expression. In person, the anxiety sets in as defense, self-consciousness runs wild, and other fear-less emotions are pushed to the bottom of the pile, restraining expression of anything truly meaningful. All the while, I crave the meaningful.

I'm glad you feel comfortable sharing the meangingful online.

Just a few random thoughts on your original post...

Let the madness show. The true bliss is hiding underneath. And the madness is best dissolved in the presence of another. The trick is for the other to remain sane in the face of your madness and help you see through and beyond it.

(That whole second paragraph just melts me. I don't have words to respond, really .. only the simplistic statement, "fuck, I love that". ... Ok, I'll try for a bit more.)

This whole existence feels like a sleep of emotion and reason, though I don't think it's eternal. There is an inevitable awakening .. the time for it is up to me. And I hope that bridging the gap-s of misunderstanding with another lost soul quickens the journey. Though I fear there are two paths along that road, one into more hallucination, one into less. In truth, all points of view are pure hallucination; but in the dream, there are some perspectives that seem to dissolve the clouds of unknowing. Perhaps it is the genuine desire to see the truth in another that resolves whatever hallucination seems to separate us.

A further note on the path that leads to more hallucination .. where attempts to connect feel like acts of desperation, where I cling to another in an attempt not to drown, inevitably pulling him down with me if he allows. The black hole within is willing to consume all, I suspect, though there is one aspect of us it cannot stomach .. the truth.

The truth warms .. the truth cuts through our placid, indifferent surfaces. The truth is in us all, seemingly hidden beneath dumb-ass semantricks, doubt, and bald-faced fear. All are hallucinations, of course, but in the dream, they trick us with a frightful substance, impenetrable as lead.

I long as well for a lost soul to stay .. to face the fear with me, to walk through the clouds together, with a commitment that at least one of us will try to remain sane at any given time, to help the other through. And in times of mutual insanity, we will remember our commitment and wait in genuine sincerity for a thread of truth to return.

My apologies for the blatant thefts of your words. It's not intended as plagiarism but as a means of connecting with what you said so poetically, by a writer who pales in the presence of your skillful expression.

...oh...oh...oh...(composing myself, trying to get presentable so the incoherency inspired doesn't show)....oh, piss on that pretense of dispassionate observation. I don't knowe much about writing or honesty, but I've been lucky enough to learn not to think forever about all I long to say...to just say it quickly And imperfectly, embrace the anxiety and panic afterward and never go back to revise anything beyond correcting spelling and continuity errors....but what am I trying to say with this?

Well....please, no apologies necessary on your part. Just....hell, I babble on far too much, so trying to stick with thank you here while giving you time to...ah, hell,just don't want to overwhelm this place with all I write, or you. But above all....simply yes....

Huge smile here .. with laughter noises and everything.

(...a coil of slow tension unwinds from the spine, and suddenly I realize I don't have to be on the defensive, constantly apologetic or anything but whoever I am right now, without reservation or apology...) Grinning like a lunatic undertaker, for reasons...well, don't wish to be redundant about it, but it's good to relax in company as becoming as yours...

Fascinating writing!

...danke! Don't want to dictate meaning or interpretation to anyone...but for me, this was one of the meta-fictions I've written about real events that I can more than live with. Real life's mundane enough...sometimes injecting it with a sense of magic gets closer to the truth of matters and events than a bare-bone non-fictional retelling...