Speaking from a bloody sleeve.

“Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.”
– Terry Pratchett –

I’ll post the other half of Too Bad later this week.

I have these things running around the machine, worms and wires. The animal is restless and anxious. Like a hunted thing. Tigers at the door Bukowski used to call it. The feeling that if I move too quickly, if I breathe too deeply, if I make a sound I’ll startle them and they’ll attack. And I have made that mistake before. My god how they can make pain. These things I hide from. The bleeding is just for effect. It’s the scars. The stitching of devoured skin and tissue. The screaming does nothing to ease it. It only makes them seem more satisfied. Like they’ve made you cry out and in that suffering they’ve won.

I thought about this fear, anxiety and the animal/machine much lately. It’s an old thing. Ancient. It was there when I was a child. I know that. I can remember standing with my ear pressed to doors. Listening for the sound, a warning, a growl or the ticking of a bomb. Something to tell me what might come. Because reading the smell wrong, misjudging a grimace for a smile meant bad things. Always aware. The tigers they were there. A little boy staring down the war beasts.

How the hell I made it this far sometimes amazes me. The numbing elixirs and potions. They weren’t excesses. They were survival techniques, a sort of spiritual and emotional triage.

The flying fists and the swinging and flailing limbs were not acts of violence. They were contact. Any contact. A savage expression of humanity. Of rage and hate. I didn’t know how to speak. So I made you do it for me. In moans and cries. In statements of disgust and spite.

These dark corners. I like them. I do in fact love them. Leave me alone for a bit and I’ll nest in them. I came out of them for some reason I’ve since forgotten. But on days such as this. I want so much to find my place in the blackness.

Here’s what I know. Most of you are cowards and light-weights. You talk a noisy game and pose real well. But when it’s time for battle you hide. Because it’s ugly, it’s hideous. It scars and takes parts you’re to selfish too lose. You are fascinated with the filth. But refuse to get any of it on you.

A few of you, a rare few are bold and brave. You’re just as fucking shell-shocked and crazy as I am.

I adore you but I cannot stand your company. We animal/machines do not run well in shared space.

Me, I’ll still tell you tales, bring back wounds and mementos and offer you ancient secrets. You’ll watch and lust and long for more.

But you’ll never see.

And tonight when you go to bed, get down on your knees and thank whatever thing you call God for that. Thank that God for not having the thoughts I do or the experiences. Thank that God that you can be ignorant.

It’s better that way.

Be well.