Is this the legacy of my own legend lost in all this life actually being lived? And what is this life, anyway? As it stirs me from barely dreaming into some wolf hour longing for the impossible? Or at the very least, improbable. This seemingly impassable divide widens with each step towards whatever conclusion is set, be it destined, or chaos divined.

So easily thinking away any accomplishments and accolades to yearn eternal for the certainly insatiable.

I think of the rattle and rumble of trains outside the window of some southern Brooklyn summer day. A million years ago. A few weeks. Yesterday. Maybe even a month from now, in the future. Or eons. And all the while, my mind goes to the rolling water behind the castle without a kingdom I call home. Or of the smell of a coming storm, the thickness of the air about to explode into release, back when all life seemed ahead and worries wandered little beyond my next immediate quest of impulse. Though it might be that I haven’t changed all that much since days now long forgotten.

I think of a friend whose voice exists only in the past, be it memory or the recordings imprinted from ever escaping yesterdays. The laugh, and such. And the words we spoke last, not knowing it would be such. Only the living half left of that conversating duo to think of the reverberations, as it echoes throughout my continued existence.

The truth is I haven’t stopped thinking about that for months now. A great theme among my recurring and reciprocating mental conundrums, never truly leaving and only ever getting so far away. All my best efforts to distract, fail eventually. And the attempts at simply facing it provide little result themselves. And of course, all the other ideas woven within that, explicable or otherwise.

So goes it, I suppose.

Worry grows in my mind about numbness. I know it is within my capability, especially when difficult or unsolvable objectives seem all my heart can ache for. So, to shut down the whole emotional factory to prevent any further faulty feelings seems right. This sort of quarantine has occurred before, if only partially, or as happens on occasion- near entirely numb.

But I had made a resolution to keep this heart open in an almost induced paradigm shift a year or so ago. The results of such vulnerabilities were massively less than I’d desired, when not totally in opposition to them. So, the pondering hovers about whether such ardor was nothing but a chance to incur more damage to an already well-battered soul. Or is all this another lesson learned, in my seemingly preferred method of the hardest way I can or can’t even imagine?

So, I guess I’ve been struggling with my optimism, to say the least. Not an uncommon condition within the species as of late, and as always. But it is something that is a bit rarer in your humble narrator. Earned myself a reputation among those souls that know me. Count on me to lift your spirits, and say the sorts of things that keep some other self going using all the right kinds of words. A lighthouse, I’ve heard tell.

Yet, I know my failures there, as well. So often within myself, but a few other moments that might haunt me for the rest of my days, or at least a whole bunch of them. If only, etc. Magical thinking and deal-making with insubstantial deities. Classic behavior, I’m sure, for some sort of psychology-based study. Knowing that doesn’t make it easier to absorb and process. Might even make it harder.

The curse of knowledge and such. How ya like them apples?

So, are the continued failures in certain aspects of life some sort of sign that success is meant only in the elsewhere and otherwise, he thinks to himself. Then he recalls that such a universe as this, comprised of such chaos is never so deliberate. Bad things happen to good people, opportunists even when malicious are rewarded, and assholes live forever. These are themes that no human plugged into the same reality as I can truthfully deny.

I think of the sycophantic state of things and genuinely wonder my part in all this history. What my inaction has allowed and what, if anything, I can do to make a brighter road forward possible. Doing what I can to avoid echo chambers of all kinds, along with the pervasive and persuasive paranoias of distrust. For I’m certain standing a crowd of people who already agrees with you does about just as much good as yelling at someone who isn’t going to listen. So, another way, right?

Right. Now, which way was that again?

Constantly thinking myself a fool, because I know that I am one. I don’t fall for the same traps, I’m not an idiot, I just choose to step inside, snare after snare. Maybe I wish to prove myself worthy of emerging from such pits. It’s not that I even expect many of the outcomes hoped for and imagined. I know enough to know against that idea. So, what is it then that I am so adamantly after?

The stories? The songs? Only briefly succumbing to the sensational sense of some other way of being. Might be that the bard works best in solitude, only emerging when it is time to be heard. To be outward and impact others and subsequently retreating before any impact were to reach him. Might just be my ego defending my life choices in the oh, so, often way of making character types out of my own personality.

Or it might be that next time might be your time, Bruce. What’s the matter? Don’t want to hold your breath on that one?

But this human desire business is so heavily infested with contradictions. And I see parts of my own story as prime examples. A being of bountiful want, yet the necessities of honor bind me to certain times, paths and positions. It’s the dichotomy that led to a more than mild spiral after the ramble of last week. And has led to the indulgence of many bad habits, historically speaking. And so easy it can be, to feed the bad habit that provokes quick acting good feeling gratification, while impossible seem the better ones that lead with the difficult upfront, with the promise of reward appearing ever out of reach.

Yet, in spite of that, I returned. Because I still believe some good can get wrung from all this. Even audaciously believing on occasion for something closer akin to greatness. And to do so means to fight the fight. You know, that good one. The iron fist of benevolence. Something I know I still believe, and especially so when everything seems so doomed. And the better habits make a better fighter.

So, I did not sip whiskey while writing this, even if only a little bit was all I would manage to get at. And I believe I’ll exert some of my potential energy making it all the more kinetic, after this. Donned in attire for best to sweat in. And a good night’s sleep might do me wonders, but I’ll be careful of my promises there. It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s just that this body and mind sometimes disagree with that, even to their own detriment.

But, I suppose control what you can, if that is even anything at all. I have a feeling there might be a few things that an individual human soul might be able to get done. After all, there is always something you can do, to improve your situation. Even if it is only to roll over, and stare at the stars as you die in a gutter.

But wildly enough, I think there is more I still must do, so dying in a gutter is staying off the agenda, as best as I can manage.