Pure of Heart

 "Even a man who is pure of heart  

And says his prayers by night,  

May become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms  

And the autumn moon is bright."  

  

I do not have a pure heart.  

I do not know good from evil  

Without touching it,  

Tasting it,  

Experiencing it...  

This is not to say I am evil.  

But I have experienced it. 

Been the victim of it,  

And been a perpetrator of it.  

The same can be said of "good."  

I have been the victim of it,  

And been a perpetrator of it.  

I am a tactile learner,  

That is my learning style.  

I will put my hand on that hot stove  

Just to smell the flesh burn.  

Pain is integral to the learning process...  

I heal myself by phase shifting opportunistically to alternate realities,  

Parallel universes...  

I have died infinite numbers of times  

And yet here I am, alive...  

I heal wounds in others  

By taking their pain into me.  

I am uniquely designed to bear it.  

It's a genetic disposition.  

I swallow their essence,  

I breathe it into my lungs...  

Burning as it courses through my veins  

Until it reaches my brain...  

And I have wounded others   

By pouring my pain into them.  

Molten aluminium   

Coursing through every passage beneath their ant hill... 

Filling every gap and crevice  

Before solidifying into a gleaming metal tree...  

I dig it up and meticulously remove all the dirt before mounting it on a polished wooden base,  

Downside up...  

I don't have a pure heart...  

I have seen too much  

To be that innocent...  

I can't be certain that innocence  

Is something I ever really possessed...  

My memories are not always chronological...  

Past, present, and future  

All exist simultaneously in my mind...  

They mix and mingle... 

I know, 

But I don't know when...  

I feel, 

But I don't always know what I feel... 

A persistent feeling of deja vu  

Slithers around every moment...  

Some ethereal feathered serpent   

Coiled around every root and branch and leaf...  

I'm the tree that I hang from,   

Attached by the Achilles tendon,  

Arms reaching out and down to the earth...  

Watching the ants return to their decimated home,  

Confused by the sudden lack of scent trails,  

The smell of absence...  

Woodland creatures of all sizes and species   

Living their lives around me as I observe unnoticed...  

I become what I see, smell, hear, taste, and touch  

While still being me...  

I mix and match...  

I fuse everything together to process its totality...  

Everything is one thing...  

Everything is the same thing...  

And I transform into everything,   

Transform everything into me...  

I'm neither good nor evil, 

Both and neither...  

My teeth are sharp,  

My claws are long and curved and hard as steel...  

I can be terrifying,  

And I can be sweet... 

It depends on the moon phase and the tides...  

My logical whims and my intellectual vagaries...  

I am not at all in control  

By being in total control...  

Both dead and alive...

Growing out of myself like a fruiting fungus 

Connected to every tree in the forest  

By my luminescent strands of mycelium...  

Order from chaos and chaos from order...

Constantly metamorphosing from this to that...   

Back and forth the pendulum swings...  

My fingers tracing runes in the sand  

As I watch the seasons change...