Steinbeckian

“What do you know of love, Little Man? Better yet, what know you of war? That many have wished you dead? That some have tried at it? That few aided you, offered thee succor and warmth? Few, yes! God blessit. And God bless you. God blessed you — with life. With friends. With children. And You, you think you know. You think you know anything at all — the hubris.

You are a fool. You may even be The Fool. And yet you cry and quake, damn yourself near every day. You see nothing and you are deaf.

So. Are you going to live, Little Man? Or are you just waiting to die?

The stars align and misalign and you’ve drawn no bead. Aimless, you seek that which all seek but you’re sure you’re the first. The first to be lost. You’re a fool.

You wait for beauty to be drawn up out of you like water from clay. You wait and call it virtue, patience. You chart the stars and pray to No One at All, and still you goddamn wait. And wait. And wait.

You look for new signals and weathers and half-assed, you hope for new winds, gods damn you, you son of a bitch. Look. Look at her! There. That is your daughter. Your daughter writhes with 8 billion of your grandchildren dispersed about — and most of them in pain. And they take their cues from you, you lazed poet, you poor excuse. Look at her, goddamn you. Look at her.

You could cure yourself. You could make that change. But you wait. And wait. You wait because you’ve adopted your cross, consider your burden their pain. And you feed off it. You parasite. You sycophant. You old toad. You messiah.

You’d rather cry sumptuous tears, and lie to everyone that lives, calling it your fate.”

“I was broken. I’m broken,” he whispered.

“Broken? What broken thing still is of use? What broken machine completes its tasks? What broken heart still beats? Broken? In what closed system of a universe can a thing be broken?

How many times did you try to die? Same as as many times you survived. You live your life like night, when all sleepers sleep except the possessed. Are you so possessed? Are you not yourself? If not, then whom could it be to which I now speak?

You think You a failure? Because you failed at dying? Because you succeeded in living? What unmerited triumph. Do you truly believe yourself worthy of your shame? Do you think you did something different than any before you? Maybe you are broken. But you chose your degradation, and you market your own defunct soul upon tomorrow’s shit-tissue classifieds of yesterday. You sold yourself short to yourself for pennies on the dollar, blackly crashed an echoing ego economy, and then you hid the paper trail of your own vanity within the climbing roses upon the derelict brick of your lost lorn soul.

Find yourself, Little Man. By God, find yourself now, lest I be moved to come looking for you and tear down that pitious tower brick-by-brick myself.”