Saturday, April 13, 2013

Threshold

By Eli Brockway/Kal Grochi:


At the gates of madness, I saw a very disturbing image. I saw myself, but changed; I saw myself in the eyes of everybody around me, I saw myself in my loved ones’ eyes, I saw myself in my own eyes.

I saw my reflection, gazing back at me, pained, pleading to be set free, to be put out of his misery, hoping for somebody to come and save him, save me, somebody who could get me out of this world’s mess...or somebody to release me from it all.

I saw what I wanted most of all, and realized that it wasn’t truly so mad, more as it was truth.

At the threshold of death I stopped myself, almost knocking on his door. I dropped the knife, staring in shock at what I was about to do. Then I cursed myself, for being like the others, and proving the others right. Weak, weak, I was weak, to weak even to end myself, to get away from all the others, from their anger, their hatred, their pity!

I cried. Selfish, foolish me, I cried for myself, unable to even do that which so many others said I should, still unable to please them in the slightest. Oh, what a cruel, cruel breed of people lived around me, only caring for those whose successes could be measured in wealth, and giving no care for those whose successes weren’t, and even less than that for those like me, with no success at all. Oh brave new world that has such people in it, why can’t you be like the days of old, where if one wished not to live they simply had to stop from ploughing their fields, or join their old king’s army? Why must you make that singular solace of death so hard to achieve?

My music, my writing, my art, my life, it all comes to naught. I hold no special place in the world’s workings, in the history of the universe, and yet I can’t even let myself go from it, to continue on to a freer world, a world of naught and nothing. So why, then, why can’t I live? What life is one that is barely lived, that the liver does not understand or find himself able to use, to fulfill?

What lies are those that are promulgated about the world, that it is happy, that everybody should live harmoniously? That is not the case, nor has it ever been. So why, then, can’t I free myself, or learn to live in it?

At the threshold of death I stopped myself, and with a sigh, I turned to another threshold, the threshold of life instead. Life, which I so sorely lack understanding of,love, which I so desperately need, and a home where I don’t have to be afraid of all that which I am in such fear of now.

Ridicule, rejection, humiliation, failure, hatred and anger, pain and pity, these all have been facts of life for me so far, and yet I still hold so much fear of them, of feeling them, and receiving them, and giving them all. If I could only find myself free of them, if I could only find a key from these chains of mine and receive the happiness I so desperately find myself wanting...

Others, I know there are others, yet they are just as far away from me as are all those who do not suffer as I do, even if they be but an arm’s reach away, we all so lack understanding of each other, all of us, rich and poor, hurting and healed, whole and broken, loving and unloved. Change, change is so sorely needed in this world, and yet none can provide it, though many can try to start it.

Sighing, and steeling myself for what I was about to do, I stepped back through life’s threshold, to try and help others, even though I couldn’t help myself.

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