So.

I have these thoughts.

Sometimes. At times.

All the time.

Perhaps you have them as well. Or you don’t. And these are just what live and burn and generally muck up the place inside my own head. I just say them. Out loud. Or more likely, in type.

An even further perhaps might be that you hear them. Or listen. Or read, which may very well be the most labor-intensive way to consume. These days.

But to get off that and back on to what I was going on about before. What was it?

Oh yes, right.

Myself. Me and me thoughts. The recurring type as well. But don’t assume from that I am a total creature of habit, and bad habit at that. I certainly am. But don’t assume so. And don’t assume that is because I want to be. I do. Of course, I do. But not totally. Is that easy enough to understand? It’s the best that I can do. Clear as mud.

For it is not that I do not love to dwell on fantastic and new sensation. It’s just that the old ones have given me a chance to study maneuvering. I can find myself knowing, generally, what they do. It’s all that new stuff and the promises of glory and what have you that really start to fuck up the ol’ noggin.

But these thoughts that I have, they have been before and just might be again. In some shape or another. But they do hinder on and around the self. Which is why I believe you, likely don’t have them. Have them about me, at least. You are more than welcome to have them or something like for yourself, but I highly doubt that you wonder the same things about your self as I wonder about my self. As it is that the wonder held in my head, on the subject of me, holds the potential of being vastly different, and the guarantee of being at least somewhat varying from the point of view from which your consciousness is cast.

Because, really, who are you? Who is it that I attempt to woo with written word?

A phantom of some past that my own psychosis has made into something that can no longer be recalled with historical accuracy? You know, Bunyan type romantics.

Or be it you, of the new? That which I find myself compelled towards, yet what little understanding I can grasp always finds its way to fall elegantly out with words. The type of thing that potential disaster plagues the inner workings of my skull if for no other reason than that hoping for the best must certainly mean that the worst is about to happen, if it has not already.

Or.

Are you but the echo in my head? The symphony I make without paying any mind. All from nothing. All back towards, when the time comes.

So. Stands the poet, brooding over a work. Brooding over a thought. A word. Or might even be a few of them strung all together. And as he tries to find words that fall like honey, the echo only grows. Down barren corridors of nerve. Through glimmering psycho-active chemicals. It echoes. On. And on. And on and on. The demands of unsatisfied pasts warping waves and decibels, masked both elegant and efficient in a voice familiar. The voice I hear in my head. Or outside. So well so, that I can no longer tell which is mine and which I made up.

But you must pardon me. For never having gotten to what these thoughts are even to be or have been. Just been rambling to long about where they might come from.

So, to start. The halls of my mind often ring and bellow with grim hymns of coming failure. And in spite of any success, the worry of failure holds a supreme power upon me. And often in some sort of self-fulfilling execution. But little fills me more with fear than not being able to accomplish. For myself, of course. For you cannot have selfishness without a self. But I do fear for others. And I fear for my success with others. Wonder whether I’m worth a half passing fart or if my fabrications have promoted a pile of dust and dirt into some grand idol.

And before such fear can even reach the scale of worth in some larger societal scale, it must march up to and through savage self-doubts. And though beaten back many times before, the grip holds strong. And long. Doubting myself has been one of the most consistent ideologies to make it from the ether of early youth into the present. As well as likely far beyond.

But.

It is not the only trait held along for all these years. And not the strongest, though it may seem it at times. No, no ma’am. For though failure and the accompanying fright always find refuge somewhere within me, it is something else. And it is quite specific, if you allow it to be vague.

Desire.

In perhaps more forms than fear of failing, it is desire of all kinds that drives me onward. Profound and poetic. Base and lustful. Uncertain and haphazard. Focused and shared. Desire drives it all.

Think what you will of it, it is certainly more than just a fancier word for want. Because a want will not drive you mad, but desire can and will and would convince you of righteousness even where there may not be.

All the while, pulling and pointing you towards something that may hold even just a strand of grandness. And even if that road ends in demise, as solid attempt is worth uncountable measures of half-ass tries. That desire will feed upon itself without ever draining the stores, if you know how use it.

What desire feeds me at the moment? Well, there may be a few personal bouts of gusto. Might even involve a beautiful young woman. Maybe. With the perpetual sort of eyes. And a soul so far beyond any type of chains.

Maybe.

But that is for me and parties involved, which even if you believe might be you, is not something to be discussed here.

Besides. That is a desire of a moment. Though wonderful and grand and exciting and nerve-racking it may be. At least at this moment. There are other desires that are much more consistent.

That which brought me here and brings me back again and again. The urge that causes my fight against the comforts of the world that others so openly accept. That which gives me a powerful loneliness and yet binds me to the wellbeing of every sentience that surrounds me on this rock, with some weighing more than others but each one hold something. That which I may ultimately fail and yet must continue to continue.

And I am not so special. I am dust and dirt and flesh like the rest. I bleed. I bend. And though it has not happened completely, I may very well break. Paranoia can plague my mind and emotion can wield the behaviors I own in all sorts of horrid and small-minded ways. I am far from the smartest, strongest or most charming. And if enough time is spent, it could be argued that only vanity and ego in inaccurately placed stations are what convince this not so humble narrator of some position of prominence.

And yet, I’ve been told enough times by the right kind of folks that there is something in my eyes. And though I can never see what they see, they still see it enough to say so.

And there are folks who seem to believe me. Or crazier yet, believe in me.

So, for their sake, I suppose I must try. Or if for nothing else, I’ll feed this ego a bit longer.