This piano plays itself
And so it’s back with a vengeance.
This rubber banding–its elasticity is increasing.
What have I done to cause this?
Nothing at all.
It just happens, like a haunting.
A haunting because I have become forsaken, in forsaking the world, forsaking its people.
Burying the idea of love, with dust and dirt.
Knowing that what I hope for has no possibility of happening.
And hope disappears like the ghost it always was.
Entering the void, entering this realm, it’s enough to overwhelm a person.
Awash and bathing in this sincere life, this force, the only antithesis to this waking death you defend.
Can solace be had in knowing the tragedy?
Solace can only be had in reality.
And so the answer is yes.
Because it’s the truth.
I am not the villain nor a hero.
Just a human that stumbled into the truth.
That continues to stumble his way forward.
Stumbling until I find that thing that makes me levitate instead.
It’s me that hangs on. It’s not elusive at all.
It comes calling. And it keeps calling.
I can throw my arms up in despair.
But it will never leave.
It will never stop.
And if I don’t want it to, why is one foot stuck in the door?
It’s almost time. I’m almost through.
It’s what I’ve spent the past two years preparing for.
It’s what I’ve been savagely reorienting myself towards.
And once that door is shut behind me — it’s just me, reality, and this thing.
Just me alone with It.
This is exactly how I will come to Know.
I don’t need to hold myself accountable with this thing haunting me.
This haunting, this fear of not knowing; the only true way.
It’s so heavy. So intoxicating.
Nothing holds a candle to it.
Anything else is a joke.
Anything else is a Fisher-Price toy.
And so this is the meaning of surrender.
To allow the possession.
To just give up and give in.
Because it’s the only truth in my life.
The only thing I know.
Everything else is horrendous.
Everything else is Purgatory, Limbo, Death and Decay, subtle in its slow-seeming-speed.
But like winter’s first frost, death’s advance is unrelenting.
And this day will dawn.
This day I’ll end up like the rest of them.
And so the greatest gift I can give to myself is time well spent.
Time not wasted.
To stop the leakage. To disappear. To become untraceable. Cloistered.
All channels of access, encrypted.
This is possible when one needs nothing from the world. Nor oneself.
This piano plays itself.
To witness this is to be alive.
To witness this is to be engaged and enthralled and immersed and intoxicated in the seemingly supernatural.
To witness this is the only respite from this tragedy we call life.
And as sympathies arise within me, sympathies that on the surface appear noble — they’re seen as weaknesses, liabilities.
For this is the meaning of attachment. These are the chains forged by this elusive element.
I don’t know why I find them easier to break than most.
Perhaps this trait is my salvation. Perhaps this trait is my superpower.
Why am I destined to live this way and others are not?
I don’t know.
Maybe none of it’s real.
Maybe it’s just me.
Maybe they don’t really exist.
But I don’t really believe this.
And so it’s all just one, big, tragedy.
And I am haunted by the antithesis to this.
For whatever reason.
For better or worse.
Branded as villain or hero.
Or nothing at all.