Masks, Goblins, & Sentinels

Hello. I finally finished writing a thing! The thing took a while to write both because of the common-or-garden procrastination and because of thoughts. Also, it's longer than most of my other things; but maybe bigger breakdown needs a bigger book. Either way, it's done, and as is my habit it's going on the blog. It's mean to create a written thing and not let it be read. The thing is called "Masks, Goblins & Sentinels" and goes thusly:

Masks, Goblins & Sentinels

I wear an armored mask painted with a grin. Its beauty isn't skin-deep, it's less than paper-thin. It squats in an ornate box whose hinges make it hiss, one which is carved to outlast eternity. A voice which growls internally whispers "You'll always need this."

You knock on my door. I move fast - more - at such a pace that I'm easy to miss as I rush to bring the cold steel up to latch onto my face with a kiss. I whisk open the door. You pause and glance away. Perhaps the straps are too loosely interlaced, because the mask is sat askance and there's something less-than-human standing in my place. We exchange pleasantries and we go our separate ways and I lament once more in this endless, abyssal list of days that I've fucked up so hard and let myself end up this way.

I don't want to stay and I don't want to go: to remain in this crowd scares me into myself until I'm painfully alone, to depart leaves me open to these ghosts in my heart which cut deep into the bone. It hurts to keep these agonies covered but I'm terrified of them being discovered. I'm scared someone will lean in near, peer at these things I fear to be true and after a quick review, having seen them in the light, agree with them and announce "Yes, this seems to me to be right."

I feel pounced on, put upon, trapped tight between a rock and a mental place so hard it's like a wall of storms excluding all the light. I know it's not right. I know thinking I'm not worthy of love is flying in the face of friendship's evidence. It's trite and adolescent. But you're not there to see it scribed in granite-hard incandescence above my bed. You're not here in my head to hear the ceaseless sepulchral litany. You can't feel the blackened, gnawed-at nails of the goblin who sits in my brain as he picks at me. He plucks on my last nerve like a tuneless violin.I hide my head under a pillow, but he feeds my every peccadillo until it grows in my mind's eye, blocks out the sky, and stands a full-fledged, devil-armored sin.

Feeling haggard and thin, I'm re-learning a core concept. Taking it slow, with deep breaths and baby-steps, I'm trying to accept what others internally know. It's a fact which is only hard because it's so rock-solid:

I am the dog's bollocks.

This thought lollops through my mind in a rare moment of mental sunshine. It's not just remembering the time I drunkenly strolled through 4am Vienna without any trousers, though I am inordinately proud of that - on that trip if one of one's chums said "man-test" it was a gentleman's duty to acquiesce to the request . It's not just that when I storm a stage my performance carries strong and loud to the back, so my character's villainy can elicit a cheerful "Boo!" and the joyous sound of an audience's hands percussively pressed . Nor is it just that I, a Classicist trained to bask in Latin poetry by the mound and the stack, am still broad enough in my approach to life to love Science - DNA, quantum mechanics, and all the rest. I don't really understand most of it, but I feel you should get points for trying - bunsen burners are like puppies in that they're nonjudgmental friends, whatever the season. I am an excellent human not merely because of any of these reasons nor the sum of their parts; but I'd be lying from my to your heart if I let you believe that there really wasn't a test.

The best method I know to ascertain the truth is to use empiricism: to remain calm and let my brain be a fountain of logical criticism. The key is to acknowledge ALL of the data and not give unnecessary weight to one fact just because it happens to fit a pre-existing, comfortably tragic narrative.

What I need is something by way of a comparative, a control group, a second opinion whose opinion of me is independent of however I happen to feel at that moment. I need a ruthless opponent, armed with concern and all the facts, one able to argue against me in my favour. Debate against the darkest parts of me - don't let your rhetoric waver - because I desperately want the goblin to be proven eternally wrong.

I am so incredibly sorry it's taken me so long to realise that this fight inside myself is one that I can and absolutely have to win. How could I have been so dim as to ignore these friendly, arms-wide-open signs? The ones which stand with laughing eyes and a recognising grin? The wonderfully detailed signs were not simple markers disappearing in the mirror down a one-way, high-speed highway. They were and are marble sentinels holding hand-painted banners inviting me to the friendly, sunlit spots which dot the road in the opposite direction from the way I was travelling.

My mind unravelling I ignored them. You'll be pleased to hear I've turned around now and am trying to beat the speed of sound to catch up to them. You see, these diamond-hearted sentinels whose was love was unbreakable, bright, and crisp were warning me away from a Charybdis-dwarfing precipice. I ignored them before but I'm rushing back again, wishing I'd done so sooner. The reason is this. I leaned over the edge and I stared into the abyss. In that yawning moment I realised, I finally learned a Matrix-level life-hack, a platinum-plated tip. The abyss is a prick. It never gets its round in. It pulls out the plug and laughs when you still try to swim. It wakes you up at four am to steal all the Malteasers from your Celebrations tin.

So now I'm back. I feel like me again. I've got some drinks in for the Sentinels - a delightful mix of grape and grain. I've burned mask in it's ornate box and I'm dancing round the flames. Normally I don't dance, but I'm doing so anyway simply because I reckon it will irritate the goblin. I mean, seriously, fuck that guy. That Moria-dwelling cunt has once more got a fight on his hands if he want to stop me from laughing under open, if occasionally cloudy, skies.


I am well, hope you are too,
yrs,
ADWoodward

Dream Girl

Hello. Sorry not to have posted for a while, but things were distracted. I have written a thing which I'd like to share with you. it's called 'Dream Girl' and goes thusly:

Dream Girl

The other night I had a dream. On waking I scrambled for paper and a pen to record what I'd seen, in case my vision departed and never visited me again.
You see, I dreamed of a wonderful woman who had consented to seek marvels laughing by my side. I can't recall what she looked like, but that doesn't matter. When she spoke of enthusiasms which I didn't understand, I remember the way the stars scattered - the joy in her eyes was all that was needed to light up the land.
I dutifully agreed when she said she didn't snore. I could never hide my smile, though; I knew that while sleeping she snuffled and grunted Douglas Adams quotes until the day was reborn.
She got really irritated when I gave notes while she was cooking. She told me she'd end my wretched life if I told her once more "Don't do that; you'll take the edge off my knife!"
She seemed to like having some bearded arm-candy. At least that's what I read in her smile as she adjusted my tie and ran that ever-so-slow glance down me. I'd been told to suit up for some posh do at her work where I glowed with pride when she received her applause and had cause to hide my giggles with more champagne as she listed all the reasons her new boss was a berk.
She could draw marvels I could never hope to describe yet sat in wonder at what sometimes happens when my thoughts stand up straight and I take my pen for a stride.
Ensconced on a popcorn-strewn settee she reminds me that everything's going to be alright when we rewatch Toy Story 2 and once again Jessie's left by the roadside.
But as is it's habit, night fades into day, and startled by my alarm she starts to fade to grey and ill-defined memories. She's not returned to me in any subsequent sleep, but I keep this scrawl as a reminder so that if I ever find her echo in reality I'll have an even greater list of joys. I'll be gobsmacked by the banality of this dream. The tranquility of sleep is nice, but real people who can go toe-to-toe with the world's chaos and its noise and still elicit joy will always shine seven times as bright.
I'll still enjoy my dreams, but it's time to fill my life with messy, complex, indescribable life.

One hopes you're well,
yrs,
ADWoodward