Triumph in the Head of Hopelessness

I will, in a barrage of fire and destruction, grow restless. Something moves me, a compassion unlike any other, whenever, wherever, to whomever. But it is hard when faced with such despair, a miserable thought breeds another and another, and then, it disappears apparently, currently.

But it cannot be eaten or dissolved, treated or hammered, so it instead, lives in me, a dread of which there is little escape and no respite. It is easy to laugh and lose hope. So there is that, a shadow living in my head, an everlasting heartbeat that turns and swirls indiscriminately.

“What do you like the most about me?” a voice asks, but when it comes to me the question should instead be less intimate, and more personal, a question of character and unity, that is easy to decipher. After all, I should say, all that I like about them is a combination of character, experience, memories, and crippling self-esteem, of myself, towards others, who must surely have it. They experience the same horror I do, every day, every night, every wish. There is little alternative.

“I will answer later when I feel better,” I say, though I know I never will.

I win, the world wins, the system is changed, beaten, revolutionized and at last I rest in complete awkwardness. The wrinkles that I go to make this possible have been scarred in my body, as have the memories I lost. A scratch from the guts that have made me quiver in complete paralysis. I am afraid all the time, in every moment I exist, even when I dream. Some do not survive the new world, so the hope I felt once, when I was stupider, will have to be used by someone more capable. I will die like this, I fear, but I also, contemplate. Nobody is worse than me at seeing the worst even when the worst is happening.

“I understand what is happening to me intellectually, but emotionally, what is being contradictory is killing me. It is unbearable and though I try, with my actions, and my words, and my thoughts, I cannot let it simmer. It won’t stop, so I have decided to accept it.”

The face of despair greets inevitably. I expect it, but it still scares me when I remember it. That it belongs to me and with me it will die. I go back and forth on whether I am suffering justly or crying unfathomably for no reason, a little bit of rage, a little bit of sadness, just colossal confusion. By the way, on my way to the pyre of a dream I once had, I should have said something proper and respectful, but I am so sickened my own misery, that instead, I shrivel like the cowards who once oppressed me. The cost of war, it is said, of inhumane atrocity, and that is me in the shivering chair, when it is not cold, in the sweat, in the flesh, a reckoning that doesn’t belong to me. But I took without noticing and it will not go. I will not go but I do follow.