The dried out wood cracks under my knuckles as I thump lightly, hoping nobody will answer.

But someone does.

An old man with frantically arranged white hair opens the door and says,”What have you come here for?”

“The truth.”

“The truth, which truth?”

“The one I believe.”, I say as I make a step forward.

“What you seek is what you will find, unless what you haven’t found is what you seek.”, he declares while closing the door.

I make the large and lonely arm chair in the left corner of the room my haven and begin:

“Given legs, I have walked. Given eyes, I have seen. Given a mind, I have thought. I have thought so much so that my world no longer belongs to me. In loss of control, I find myself asking questions. The questions are passed under the table. The answers are found in my envelopes of bribery. Envelopes that have passed through the blood covered fingers of the corrupt ingrained. The playing field has leveled, and my soul no longer runs through the fog. My tears flow upward into the sky all in hopes to defy. The truth is what I seek, so now old man, begin to speak.”

He strokes his beard and scrunches his wrinkled forehead, pouting his lips as if to say something.

He grabs his flask and shines sunlight onto it. Directing the reflection straight into my eyes he begins:

“You walk as if an artist, you see as if a poet, and you think as if a rebel. You have thought. Thought too much, my child. Your truth that you seek is everywhere you cannot find it. Every moment you spend searching, is another moment lost finding. It’s a matter of perspective, of realizing that what realization is is nothing but another input found in the outputs of your mind. Cease your journey and you shall no longer travel. Cease your doubt and you shall no longer question. The truth is what I speak, so now my child, begin to seek.”

He leans in toward my right ear and whispers softly, “Now, wake up.”

The sound of sheets rustling startles me, my breathing flows heavy and hollow.

I’m not insane if it’s in my brain.

If the search I do maintain, the truth I will obtain.

I pour some Captain into a glass.

Cheers to being happily miserable.

I write to empty my soul, not my glass.

I played jazz on my drive home from work.

I’ve probably smiled 400 times today, and not once sincerely meant it.

I’ve wished hundreds of  “good evenings” and given “thank yous” to probably over thousands of customers, and yet all I want to do is be home reading my books on how I will treat those people when they are dead and gone.

Initial decay this, Cremation that.

I’m most happy where others are completely mortified and miserable.

“So you’re one of the special ones” they all declare.

Define special.

Are you special?

Is your 9-5 just enough to get you by? Are you true to yourself, or do you sit inside your cubicle wondering how it would have been if you had just had the courage to follow your true desires? Grab your receipt and go, perhaps tonight you’ll convince yourself once more that life’s worth while in the mind of the silenced dreamer.

I swipe a bottle of paint and grin at the next person as if they were the most beautiful being to walk the surface of this planet.

I see their soul light up and for a second, they have lived and felt worthy.

Its all about the feeling.

I sense it, I live it, I breath it.

What tickles my fancy is what is after that.

The loss of feeling, soul, and being.

The slow abandonment of  the machine.

Just as cells join together to run the machine, cells also diminish together to shut down the machine.

It’s the question that drives me.

I want to know what makes the buttons click and the clocks tick.

I want to play computer technician in anatomical form.

I want to fiddle with the cardiac motherboard, and pull the strings of the encephalitic processor.

I don’t want to read the manual, I want to be the manual.

By looking at lack of feeling, I can completely understand the abundance of feeling.

Staring at the faded lights in the darkness, the longer she stares, the more they seem to mesh.

A canvas of all black, through her eyes, splash of color travels through the seams at the condescending speed of light.

A bite of the bottom lip, boy this book is interesting, a shiny lighter makes its personality known.

A beat, a rythm, and a ciggarette is lit.

Menthol according to her high prefference.

Paintbrush in hand, her soul seeps through the paint much like blood through a vein.

The image of a door, light screaming through the crack, is this the place to be or is it just fantasy?

The clock moves its branches, swaying its hours to ambition.

Minutes fall like leaves of autumn, running away from the dull tick of electronical symphony.

Much to her desire, it was 3 in the morning, and insomnia made its usual prescence.

She poisoned him just enough so he could be helpless, yet able to feel it.

His mouth spitting despicable words earlier, now cannot even attempt a breath.

A bloody hair dryer set on the night stand, someone should have taught this little boy his manners.

She politely refused him once, even twice, if he did not get it, she gave him a lesson he would never forget.

One that will stick in his brain for a very long time.

She takes another drink from the bottle of cheap vodka, her knuckles still swollen from the multiple punches she gave as a kind gift to his finely chiseled chin.

Strategic hits under the jaw, calculated use of force, and fierce urge were her main ingredients.

She isn’t the strongest, but with enough knowledge, even a chicken can kill a rooster.

She contemplates what she will do with the body, the blood spatter will tell of foul play.

Perhaps even homicide, you never know.

It has gone down so many times in her mind that it is already monotone.

Certain death?

No.

Way.

Get caught?

Everything is legal until somebody catches you. 

Eye for an Eye.

Everything happens for a reason.

You could use all of these, but they would be too epic, too dressed up.

This was just instinct. Pure human instinct.

She moves his body, the hairs on her skin stand up as if in a final salute.

She opens her eyes, dilated pupils in the dark.

It was all a dream.

Turning on her side she smirks, it may be a dream, but do remember.

We dream what we think of most.