Decorum

The style of this story belongs to the masses, it spreads in uncomfortable ways and inevitably comes back to me, the writer, who will lavish in its sticky essence, and place it, after the afterglow, in a mirror where I can watch it and reflect upon it. It will duplicate itself in ways I cannot even fathom and when it is done, when I am finally done, there will be a general reckoning across the world, that my story is important, and that it will happen again and again, through the ages. But will it be the same, the thing that I wrote that lives and transcends, or will it be me, the beautiful creator, who will live to inspire insipid, insufferable? I nod at my genius but shiver at the incessant drilling of thoughts, that I have written garbage, that I have written for the love of money and not for the love of scribbling, that I am, against all odds, a talentless, obnoxious, delicate thing with a strange delusion? All of these things make sense, but none of them are quite enough: the book has been written, the story is over, and the miracle of miracles, that I could write at last, that I could write with a smile, is done! It is done and I am done. The mirror shows me what it is that makes my story so special, but in its cracks, and in its words I see the reflection of my endless stream of nonsense. How can I think that the book is good when everything about me is so wrong? But then I think that there is good in this world, and it is not me who deserves it. In the story, there is a flower and a dream, ad also a cat that is never silenced, but I have never felt any feelings, I have never fallen in love with my own writing.

It disgusts me so, that I have written something that will exist again and again, and never be mine. In an instant before I was even conscious, I followed my own instincts into this point, and now I detest being who I am, as the story reflects from mirror to mirror, and I cry and I laugh and I smile and I pretend to write, all at the same time, when a story has lived forever. Do I need another? And another? And on and on, in the realms of mediocrity, or is there a sense of relief that can come if I am strong enough and warm enough? The words have been written. And I wrote them. Not willingly, but through a bamboozled derangement that is almost comical, almost as if I knew, and know, that it is not me who will be remembered, but the story, with all its flaws. It can be lived and relived, improving, layer by layer, at all things I was too scared to do. It is sickening, unfortunately, to know that you are but the seed of genius, and not the genius itself, who I was, who I wanted to be. The story is going to outlive me, in life, in death, and in eyes. It continues and I continue too, worse, and devoid of all delusion. Clear, concise, ready to learn who I’m really not.