We don’t grow out of suffering.

It lasts with us.

It reinvents itself.

Constant as the wind in the trees,

As the desks and strip lights in the office,

As that sudden fist of terror at a room full of people.

Seeing is through disbelieving.

Not through the tampering or elimination of thoughts,

But the polite disregard for their quiet stories of un-joined-up-ness,

And for the forever broken replica of life that we hold up as life.

And if you turn, for a moment, away from these words,

You’ll find a loyal reality that was never broken,

A joined-up life, as life can only be.

You’ll find loved ones who were never apart from you,

And you’ll laugh at the nightmare of things seeming not to be so

And you’ll take a friendly swat at those clumsy clouds that float right through you

As if they owned the place.

You?

Me?

Enlightened?

Before bedtime?

It’s already 8.23 pm for shit’s sake.

If you and I were, let’s say, chatting over a coffee or perhaps taking a drive somewhere, talking about our lives, I’m afraid the truth is that I would probably not be able to resist the temptation of presenting things in a certain way, of appearing a little more satisfied with how things had gone and a little more clear about how things were going to turn out.

Take this as a forewarning in case we ever meet.

But what I can also say with certainty is that despite my efforts, I will always fail to glorify my present circumstances.  That is, my present circumstances are your present circumstances and things will be irredeemably just what they are.

Whereas the past seems to be a canvas on which I can splash all manner of colours, the present seems to be made of a less absorbent material.  Here my paint never sticks, here my clothing never fits.

This is where you can hurt me, look right into my lies, my constant place of ridicule.