A Shadow Among Shadows

There is stout loneliness, even amongst the most trodden of places. It can be found in the passing on of images not quite distant; it reigns in the reflection that passes similarly as far; it flounders in the depths of memory, where no feet ever tread, but have only trodden; it makes its home in the ignorance of loss, where possessed tangential elements comfort and coddle even under the blackest clouds of night.

No amount of tune can bring resolution to the dreams that trail like tethers from the maws of windows, nor any embellishing of moments bring two proximal hearts to any beck or call of kinship; or love.

Nor in the bounties of oral tenacities can lifelong lusters be quenched; for in the dark is revealed the ticking of the clock, and of the jilted harmony that preserves its ticking to the utmost efficiency. The taking of life is often part of that ritualistic splendor, and ignorance of such is a foundation doomed to falter.

Amidst it all, of course, is fear. For by that fear our all is forsook; as shadows tremble and march to its grim command; as dark becomes indistinguishable from dark. We suffer by illusions of doubt and question, which keep us safe from the evil we so eagerly expect to befall us. We cast aside the thorny strangers, judging our feelings as wholesome and uncontestable. By judging eye and strongheld heart we abate the kinship so long sought and craved: for disillusioned are we in our gains, by which only the assembly of disparate pieces in our travels and reputations may bring to pass.

Life is stranger still, as we are even puzzles to ourselves; we pull ourselves apart and wedge in our uniquely-crafted pieces in an aim to expedite that completion--that ever-sought resolution. We perhaps fail to realize that we, as puzzles, are already complete--nothing can ever detract from that. And even if it were so, what use is it to build a puzzle that has already been completed? Our aims, perhaps, should be to help one another, and allow in help for ourselves, in the context of this: that there are puzzles left unseen...puzzles that are one by our sharing of our own as one.

But our demons call; the demons that reel in our gazes and pollute our minds with their hellishly-personal contents of jealousy and loathing; the demons that direct their focus on our bodies by way of their voracious appetites for health and peaceful living; the demons that take residence for some short time within our systems, and forthwith in that time reek such havoc as to undermine the very freedoms of our souls. We are helpless to heed their calls, and so do willingly and with golden sights upon the horizon.

But still, we tread on. We march in step with our unseen and unwanted facets, treading grounds unkempt by the seasons. We keep our formation with eyes and senses lock straight forward, daring rarely to glimpse outside of our own well-kept paths. The walls of wood that tunnel our paths are upheld as our limits, while beyond such limits are the rest of humanity, who they themselves sally forth along their own cyclic mazes. It is rarely beyond the falling of a tree and allowing of sights or cross-traversement that such circles are impregnated, and thus rarer still that such divergences in life amount to a permanent, or even rudimentary, causeway.

Nevertheless, it may be easily concluded, theorized, or prophesized--efficiency or callousness notwithstanding--to be a facet or tangent of a simple fact: that we each are born with a cross to bear.

And in time we shall find, when Life forces a shift upon our own--whether we so desire to allow It to or not--we will realize, perhaps, that we lack complete control, anyhow...and that we are not alone behind the wheel.