Big Game

So I am sitting here fighting the self-doubt thing. Yeah, the demon is trying. I worked today, hard, kept myself busy, distracted from all the thinking. But I drive a lot for work, so my mind has plenty of time to batter me around a bit. So what is it today? What are you going to relive and agonize over, Mr. Boccia? The old ones or something new, some new perceived failure?

There. Right there. The language, the syntax, it's perfect. It comes out through my fingers, a rapid release, unwitting, flowing through the valley in my head, a steady current. I think I am diverting the attack, but it is a feint, subterfuge, keep him busy, now STRIKE, end this hope, crush him. Why wont she love me, why doesn't he call me back, why are they so distant, why, why, why? Enough.

See, I am beginning to understand this thing, beginning to make out it's features, learning it's habits. Where it likes to lurk, quiet, diligent, unblinking, when it likes to feed. This game is the most elusive, it is the predator, the top of the food chain in the wasteland of self-loathing, the unseen enemy in the thicket, the eyes you can feel but never see. It is wounded, deadlier, more desperate, but more visible, more prone to the steel of my logic. I will not slash wildly anymore at the hiding places, I will time my strikes, wait for the opening, draw it out by being hopeful, by loving without expecting anything in return, by living.

He didn't call you back? Probably busy, has a life, not avoiding. You can't jump to that first, people deserve their own reasoning, not that which you project on them. They are distant? Why do you say that? What evidence do you have? Is that their own way of dealing with the discomfort of seeing a man bare his fears, his faults? Then so be it. Let them choose to do as they will. You have no say. She doesn't love you? You have given all you could, all you were capable of giving in that blackness. If she doesn't see that, see your love for her, it may be some mechanism within her, not you, that is broken. Perhaps you could not give her enough, perhaps her needs are too selfish. You cannot control these other people, can't walk their hallways, can't fight their demons. You have your own.

For the moment, I have routed him, pushed him back. The smell of spring from the open door, the sound of a single chime on the front porch. The light is playing on the headstock of my guitar, little glimmers, as it reclines against the sofa. I can sense my environment, feel the outside creeping in, or, perhaps, I am creeping out, meeting it halfway, opening the door a little wider.

Time will tell.