Gods of Self-Deception

Maybe you’re invisible. Maybe your vanishing act was caste.
Maybe you’re a ghost in your own home, a stranger moving by too fast.

Maybe every torch you’ve lit extinguished. And maybe no one’s ever cared.
Maybe you’ve disappeared in the eyes of the world. Maybe you were never even there.

No. Each breath you take is given. Each move you make is watched.
The slightest contraction of the chest is whispered, granted to beat and permitted to throb.

So maybe you’ve got holes. Vibrant flaws that scream and sear.
Maybe the condescending whistles really are, the only things you hear.

Maybe you’ve been begging. But no one’s let you in.
Maybe you’ve been playing this game forever. But He’s never let you win.

Still every fall is measured. Every scar you’ve razorred, mapped.
Every hurt has been determined. Every tear that's fallen, kept.

Every smile is carved and painted. Each cry you sound, composed. Every
lump in your throat, created. And the gun in your hand exposed.

So maybe you really are just as small as you imagine. Become a servant to perfection.
Maybe you’re really nothing but you’re image. Fallen to the gods of self-deception.

No. Every tear you’ve shed’s been counted. Every word you uttered, framed. Every thought you’ve thought is written. For, every moment G-d repeats your name.

To Kill a Scorpion

To kill a scorpion,
Might thaw the venom in your veins.
And maybe revive the desire to play,
With the God we caste away.

First revel in the chase.
Then the comedown from the high.
Lace your fingers in the clouds.
And peel down the sky.

The culmination of the world,
Is jumping off the edge.
You’re never high enough,
If you’re still clutching on the ledge.

So first revel in the chase.
Then the comedown from the high.
Lace your fingers in the clouds.
And peel down the sky.

***

Cheshvan’s astronomical sign is Scorpio. Scorpions are cold-blooded, and symbolize indifference. Apathy. The challenge of Cheshvan is to revive our desire to serve G-d. To soar the G-dly skies.

The very purpose for soaring is, contrast to popular belief, the comedown afterwards. To drag the G-dliness from your trip down with you as you fall back down.

If you’ve been soaring and are still looking for a spiritual high, you are not high enough; you need to fly some more.

The sign that you’ve achieved G-d is that you’re ready to fall again.

***

If you don't truly understand the above...I hardly do either.

Fearing Fear

This is going to confuse you. I'm roughly certain that it will since, it confuses me. Fear confuses me in general. I hate fear. I fear fear. Throughout my life I’ve found fear to be the most powerful, motivating emotion to ever kiss me.

At one time, I feared the worst, because the worst kept proving its existence. Now, oddly, I fear that it will never go back to the way it was.

The way it was, wasn’t how it was supposed to be. She wasn’t supposed to get hit by a car or fall into two year long coma. I wasn’t supposed to tweak things in my life that didn’t want tweaking or become the teenage equivalent of Manis Freedman (forgive me if I am totally flattering myself).

But she did. And I did.

Now its been two years. And its gone. The inspiration. The horrible metaphors. The ridiculously clichéd manner in which my thoughts involuntarily formed into the words I swore to God I’d never say.

And now I am actually jealous of myself. Jealous of the way I once let myself think. Of the things I once let myself do. I now covet the days when I actually believed hard enough to let sound like that. And the times that I didn’t care how trite or preachy I came off.

I once feared the days that fear found me. Now I fear, I’ll never find those days again.

This is what I wrote almost two years back.



Ps. Israel is awesome. I just can't sleep. Therefore I started thinking about weird things like fear.