Erysichthon of Thessaly

 Surrounded by creatures,
Starving,
Yet never able to be filled
No matter how much they consume...
It's an age old condition
Etched into human mythology...
So many stories
Of the wretch
That no matter how much they eat
Can never be satiated...
The god of hunger
Lives
In too many of us even now...
Especially now...
This "modern" world
Of technological dependency...
From the upper echelon
To the unwashed masses,
In every socioeconomic level...
People living
With an emptiness inside them...
The ghost in the shell is absent...
They are only the shell...
Tropisms and instinct...
The constant search for 
Baser need fulfillment
Without any understanding
Of what those baser needs are...
Maslow weeps...
And they never ascend
To the apex,
Self-actualization,
Since their true self
Has been mostly destroyed
Since childhood...
Absent...
No relationship
Will fill the spaces inside...
No amount of substances
Will numb their agony
Enough,
And yet they gorge themselves
On these attempts to numb the pain...
Of course,
This exacerbates the cause of the hunger...
Eventually,
Even the physical structures
Of the brain
Change...
Metamorphosize 
To represent this lack of heart...
Lack of soul...
That dog-eat-dog
Capitalistic attitude
That any human connection 
Is nothing more than
Currency...
A tool to obtain
What it is
They are starving for...
So often killing
Who it is
They are draining of life force...
Polluting 
Every source of sustenance
Due to their fear-based greed...
And then moving on to the next...
The human race,
Overall,
Taken as one entity,
Is often brilliant,
But often self-interested
And destructive to extremes...
Short-sighted...
Focused on wants vs. needs...
Consuming itself in its race towards self-destruction...
Kronos eating his own children...
Fear at the center of every decision...
The all-powerful "Me" 
The focal point  of their easily distracted attention...

Nephilim

 Sometimes it's tempting to wish I could go back in time...
Back to college when I often felt like a demigod 
Both worshipped and reviled by an entire Northeastern town...
"The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown."
Swimming on a sea of the flesh and the pleasures thereof...
But very few left a lasting mark on my soul...
Everyone changed me...
Just as every new interaction changes us ever so slightly...
Some more than others...
But that precious few,
More valuable than any amount of material world legal tender...
Tattooed into the fabric of my life...
Almost physically connected despite even thousands miles of distance...
I remember...
I remember every touch, taste, smell, sensation...
I also remember the many mistakes I've made...
I've forgiven myself for those,
But I guess it's natural to wonder how life would be with at least one choice altered...
Just one crucial thing...
I guess, though, realistically speaking,
There are many things I would likely want to change...
But it's all good, as they say.
"It is what it is" is another good cliché appropriate to the sentiment...
True connection is rare...
True connection that spans decades, rarer still...
Late nights studying...
Saturday morning cartoons, and breakfast in the dining hall...
It is rare to find a true equal...
Someone whose soul is cut from similar cloth with a slightly different design...
Cherish these kind of people if you are fortunate enough to have them in your life...
Our friendships often give us a bit of our will to live...
Positive reinforcement of the idea that it will all be okay,
And the journey will continue...
Everything is in constant flux...
Every moment is evolution...
Or
It can be...

Fleas and Ticks

 Baby birds
With their mouths agape...
Hungry for whatever
Gets thrust down their throat
By a mother's beak
Or steel forceps...
Helpless to even feed themselves...
Some people are like this
With their needs...
Parasitic in their lifestyle...
Helpless in the world...
Children that never grow up...
They know how to ask,
But they have no clue
How to do...
No idea
How to do for themselves,
Yet expecting all of their needs
To be met...
This is not something
Specific to a modern generation...
These types have existed
For longer than
The human race has been human...
Survival adaptation,
And that is all...
It's not heroic, 
But has its roots
In loss and fear...
What is heroic in the face of the dynamic?
All of the classic
Literary struggles...
Even the final
"Man versus self"
Battle
Being conquered...
Survival is the goal...
Life force is the battery...
Sheer force of will
Is the magic...
Self-actualization...
Parasites sense this...
They hunger for it...
A taste of that power 
That they can never access
Through their enfeebled
And primitive desires...
And so they attach...
Cicadas attached to the roots
Of the target,
Draining the sap,
The life's blood,
Via very specialized
Feeding apparatus...
17 years a parasite at home,
They take "what they've learned"
To the world outside of the nest...
Every target
Is their mother or their father...
A replacement
For what never gave them the tools
To survive on their own...
In and out of jail...
The "system"...
Recidivism high...
Lessons are hard to learn
When the mind is still
Emotionally
Three years old...
So,
I find myself
Often surrounded by these
Emotionally stunted
Beings...
Their mouths open wide,
Wanting the things that I have...
The things that I have worked for...
And, I'm sorry,
But 
I don't need any children
Masquerading as adults...
All of my children
And potential children
Have died...
I have no need
To adopt an adult human...
If you try to
Look to me
As a replacement father figure,
Or some tribal elder,
Then I will become
The kind of father figure you will hate...
I'll expect you to do better...
My disappointment
Will become physically painful
For you to bear...
My approval
Will be like
A bar of gold
Or a sparkling diamond...
Your compliance,
Yet another reason
To revile the weakness
Ruling your heart,
Dominating your existence...
The alpha and the omega,
The first and the last,
I am...
Never anything in between,
I am controlled extremes...

Starting the Generator

How does one start?
Words eventually flow from some emotional reaction
To some small interaction with other human beings...
Sometimes it's good...
Sometimes, not so good...
Sometimes I think the human race has overstayed its welcome,
And wouldn't even mind an ELE meteor strike...
Just turn it off,
And then turn it back on...
A cosmic reset...
But
That's just sometimes...
I'm not always the Angel of Death...
Not always...
Sometimes the emotions are ecstatically up-beat...
Possibly orgasmic...
Positive or negative,
I'll try to put them down into words...
Describing the things I can't explain with words
With more words...
(That thought put me in therapy at least once...)
But,
Who knows,
Maybe someone else might relate to the feeling in the intangibles I describe,
Whatever they may be, and not feel alien or quite so alone...
Or quite so different...
Or quite so ashamed...
Or quite so hopeless...
Just words can be powerful things...
Every utterance passing over your lips is a spell...
Your will cast into the Universe...
Be yourself...
Be your true self...
Crystallize in your mind the image of your future desire...
Trust that you can get it right...
That, sometimes, things just fall into place...
(Almost as easily as things fall apart...)
It's a little of this, and a little of that...
The sweet and the sour...
Intention makes a difference...
Focused intention can look like magic once you actually get what you want...
As if you bent the laws of nature and physics to achieve a certain goal...
But everything that is is natural...
Everything that is allowed to be just is...
Everything you see...
Everything you hear...
Que sera sera...
Tout ce qui est est...
Just chugging through another day...
Trying to keep a clear head...
Trying to maintain a peaceful life...
Making space for healing and growth...
(While still ready to go 80's era Henry Rollins should the opportunity arise...)
Human interactions...
Sometimes things can get dark, but it's all just stage play,
Dominance displays, and submissive behaviors...
Mostly transparent,
Which makes observing their behavior all that much more frustrating...
And then someone flips a light switch on and off a few times...
And suddenly humanity's just peachy...
And all is cool with the world...
But for how long?
Stay tuned...
Life is strange.