room with a view

I have seen the damage and I have learned my lessons. My heroics are paying their way now through this sleight of hand we call mass culture. I can talk about it with humor and grace and sympathy and I understand the need and desire and willingness to let go and immerse in the stream of numbing chemical reactions that produce the hilarity and exhilaration before dumping the rider back into the rutted gallery of abuse and depressive twitch and numbing grief. A curious thing being surrounded by those that still require escape from bedevilment that really never goes away that control and send into scalding repetitions of self-destructive narratives of the soul, the cycles that can only be broken by shear system failure or by the inner strength found under the ice in 20 feet of water reaching for a life line as the air runs out. I find strength in the presence of broken spirits and my urge is to heal. If only they had ears to hear above the din of intoxication.

My visitor last night is an old friend and co-conspirator. We have reconstructed the world many times over through the years. It was a sad spectacle watching him hover in drunkenness over the deep hole in his soul. A bottle of rum does many things to a broken heart. One thing it won't do is fix it. It never will nor has been known to fix a fucking thing. Telling a foaming drunk that his life is fucked for good unless he unfuck it while still able is a perfect example of bleak futility. It takes courage. It takes a faith to change. Not a faith in something higher, for that just means resigning one's responsibilities to a third party but a faith in yourself. I could not give my self up to chance now. I survive on purpose through my own free will. My old visitor last night will wallow with his demons in the ruins he has made of his life by choices he made under the spell of alcohol. I have lost friends in the past to this rat shit and I seem to be losing another. The sad thing is he knows better but allows it to engulf and smother and seduce and kill him softly.