Mostly manufactured

Behind the Morocco Shrine Temple

I worry that each measured step of painstakingly learned efficiency that drags me away from the terrifyingly free days of my early twenties is one step closer to the calculating coldness of the perfect Adult©. Every time I perfect one of the tiny tasks that has always for some reason eluded me, from oil changes to learning that keeping track of important paperwork now will save time later, I get this image of Carolyn Burnham, the mom from American Beauty, and I fret.

The war wages on and I feel split apart, pulled to pieces, 

tendon from ligament from slippery sinew.

How is it possible to hold on to anything good 

when the illusions dissipate and run from you?

 

Everything we want is nothing like it initially seems and the happiness dims as soon as we grasp for it, ruining everything beautiful like grubby little child hands smearing the life dust from diaphanous butterfly wings.

But is that just the way it is?

The faint rumble of rebellion rolls around my guts like faraway thunder and I can’t help but feel the urge to exclaim “Tis I can buck the system!” because it’s difficult for me to give up in resignation, with Failure dancing around menacingly and laughing in my face- and yet it’s difficult for me to shut the dreaming factory down. My dreams roll all over the place in winding circles of contradiction as almost every dream I have rules out the possibility of any other dream.

I have no choice but to give in and endure the wonderfully painful lashes of each branch of future lives raining down upon my flesh, giving myself over to a masochism I’ve really mostly manufactured

and I wonder if anyone else can see these scars of futures forsaken