Pinning Hope and Humor
on a Trove of Delusions
I have found that I am
all too inclined to believe
people. Despite all my
talk of skepticism and
being clear with myself
and with anyone who
cares to listen about
the easy fact that
everyone of us is
practically tied up
into knots within
a web of heresy.
That part I’m okay
with. How could
it not be this way?
In the rulebook of
life (to make things
just that much more
for reals, try picking
up a book of etiquette),
there are lies on every
other page. And inst
ructions for the endless
ways we need to pre
varicate on every
other. Thusly the
ties that bind begin
to come undone until
I find myself so out of
sorts, desperate for
honest human en
gagement, were it
to exist. I’d take
it just about however
I could get it, during
these, the most anxious
and self-annihilating times.
And so I reach out. And
I wait. And then I keep
reaching. And wait some
more. Sometimes this
goes on seemingly forever.
And then misguided hope
arrives, the bait has been
taken, and for whatever
reason you find you’ve
got a reaction, a real
human interaction.
Or so you think.
I get so blindsided
by these short inter
ruptions of silence.
They are most often
vague with a hint of
scolding, confusing
as a spanking for
something done
by a sibling. Poor
innocent me. But
within such responses
to my desperation there
always seems a thing
or two to which I cling,
until the words get
played within my
fogged up dust-
head for some
long weeks or
months. With
nothing else
coming from
that general
direction, no
more words.
Just the fact
that with in
evitability
must be
faced when
delusions are
not an option
(but aren’t they
always?): those
gems to which
I clung were
merely rhine
stones. A single
promise can’t be
found within the
invalidity of the
long-distant words
from whomever.
The more that
time unfolds
the more that’s
clear, there’s
nothing realer than
that most humans,
in the end, but
willingly and
without a
seeming tinge
of regret, will
almost always
disappear.
The problem
is all me, you
see, these
lessons teach,
one by one
until at last
I am an
inconsistent
blur of shadow
and uncertainty
and altogether
human-free.
And yet, I,
like some
untarnished
idiot, can never
quite extinguish
these last remain
ing dregs of hope.
