Tricks and Sticks Won't Break Me, But Your Souls Will

The truth about truth telling is...

Tricks and Sticks Won't Break Me, But Your Souls Will

I know you.

But you don't know me.

Oh, but you think you do. You think you know me well. Like a book with words splayed upon pages in pristine clarity, I am there. For you to examine and probe and discuss and critique. As if. Any of that matters. Because. You see. I am not there.

I am here.

Where. There are no words. No symbols that delimit what is known. No confinement of what is, for your convenience. For I am nothing. If not. Inconvenient.

I am disturbed. In that way that deep pools are unhinged by frightening nightmares of depths that lay untouched, unwoken. In that way that fell woods are haunting and darker than pitch. I am that shadow, that nightmare, that demon of eternity that seeks judgment for the damned.

Oh, but I am light too. That beam of soft caress that falls upon heavy shoulders, as thunderous clouds break to gasp alight, amidst the gloam. Indeed. I am that warmth of hope, that fire of inimitable courage, that pours into hearts and souls, steadfast against the tumult of life miser and brutal.

Nevertheless. The price of me is beyond the pale of ken. Too steep by far for the humble. So, who pays? Who pays this unfathomable price for the immaterial me?

Me. I pay. Over and over and over and over, I pay.

How?

Myself. I own nothing but myself. So I pay. Over and over and over and over. With. Myself.

You think... such payment... easy?

You think... such payment... sweet?

Alas. No one pays for easy. No one pays for sweet. For easy and sweet are worthless in this world that spins on axes of ego and greed. Indeed. The me that is worthful in this world that spins on axes of malice and avarice, is hardly trustworthy or virtuous. For trust and virtue are worth nothing.

Nothing at all.

So, how do I pay?

By being the only currency of value, among the greedy and the insatiable, among the predatory and the rapacious, among liars, among deceivers, among all who belong immured in immortal ice and eternal inferno. Over and over and over and over.

Until the immaterial me detaches from mortality like a kite flung upon the event horizon... Sundering from my heart and soul... purity, virtue, hope, faith, trust, good.... and memories of all that was, all that is, all that will be... Berefting me of me.... Stranding me amidst deep pools and fell woods and the tumult of life miser and brutal.

Such a price, for truth, I wish, no one. Notwithstanding that such a price, for truth, irrevocably denies heroism, nobility, sainthood; such a price, for truth, incontrovertibly denies inviolable sacrosanctity; such a price, for truth, undeniably revokes authenticity, via truth seeking, truth speaking, truthing... does it not?

For who trusts me... to speak the truth...?

The shameless sinner.
The profligate reprobate.
The impostor. The fraud. The hypocrite.

Am I indeed...?

Tricks and sticks have yet to break me... but, your souls, oh your souls, have, do, will... over and over and over and over...

For no trick nor stick is as repulsively vile nor as loathsomely repugnant... as the souls... who bought me, who ravaged me, who sold me, who plundered me... with contemptible joy and abhorrent delight and ruthless untenable pleasure... For the only currency of value, among the greedy and the insatiable, among the predatory and the rapacious, among liars, among deceivers, among all who belong entombed in immortal ice and eternal inferno... is the depraved exploitation of the noble and the virtuous.

Now... do you know me?

Because I know you... and your heroism, nobility, sainthood... your inviolable sacrosanctity... your authenticity via truth seeking, truth speaking, truthing...

... belong as much immured in immortal ice and eternal inferno... as your shameless sins... your profligacies, your reprobacies... your frauds and your hypocrisies...

... as verily as I speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

More

The truth is nothing, if not, inconvenient.

... the more that we insist - that liars cannot be truthers - and - truthers cannot be liars... 

... the more that we fail to seek, much less see, the whole truth...

... no truth seeker, no truth speaker, no truther - is a paragon of virtue, much less, authenticity - by denying the whole truth...

... there is no heroism, nor nobility, nor sainthood, nor sacrosanctity - in masks that malign, disparage, vilify - our selves and each other on the basis of symbols that arbitrarily delimit inconvenient truths - in service to convenient truths...

... not only are convenient truths that obfuscate the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth - in fact - lies by omission...

... truthers who lie... also fabricate, manufacture, deceive, distort, etc.

Needless to say, it behooves us all to see the whole truth.

... because obscuring the whole truth, ultimately satisfies no agenda of justice...

... regardless of whose - liar or truther - agenda such obfuscation ostensibly serves...

... for the obfuscation of the whole truth is inherently unjust...

... notwithstanding that the obfuscation of the whole truth is ever a tactic of tyranny and despotism in service to regimes of absolutism and intolerance...

... which is exactly how systems of law and order - as well as societies, as a whole - devolve... when societies eschew truth seeking for... agendas of injustice.

- M.

~ * ~

Just Desserts

that sweet nectar

          of revenge

          drips from my pen

          oh that justest of just desserts

that heady aphrodisia

          of blood

          clings to hands

          that judgeth man

                    my hands

                    my hands

                    my hands, indeed

how divine

          sanctity

          of throats 'neath my sword

          that executeth by mightest of righteousness

oh depravity

          it hungers

          it devours

          it sates unfathomable desire

                    licking drips of vengeance

                    drinking blood that clings

                    sucking swords of sanctity

                    dry

no dessert is more just

          than hubris and hypocrisy

          rampant, unbridled, pious

I am but slave

          to addiction

          to ecstasy

          to conceit

                    omnipotence

                    infallibility

                    what more irresistible temptation is there

until 'fore beckon

          implacable certainty

          of eternal reckoning

          for which no man receives mercy

          thus dessert is ever just
                    for he who savors it
                    too much

~ * ~

Note

See also Corruption (tvfs) and Robert Frost 'Fire and Ice' (wiki)

round and round
upping down
sword and pen
truth upend

from Upping Down (poem, tvfs)