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It’s Been Said

These words are not his own. They’re borrowed from the mouth of a wandering heart, culled from minds blessed with immeasurably more eloquence. It’s all another role in this endless drama put on through each crawl the sun makes across the sky, a mask that fits for a spell, then cracks and breaks as truth inevitably breaches the surface, clawing at every elaborately enacted facade.

It could be asked if any talent be labeled true, or truer than others posted on the endless walls and pages that line this endless rabbit hole of plodding wonder, stacked with little care, but still claimed as if belonging to a whole that wouldn’t forget its cast off children, even though the trails grow muddy with the refuse of collapsed expression. It’s a senseless jumble, a junk box filled with shit and arbitrary jewels that keep the greedy reaching deep despite the corrosive burn of nausea that settles each time hands produce nothing but the smear of mediocrity. And to convince that the bauble found is genuine, not a forgery, is betrayal to sick hunters momentarily brightened by the impression of pedigreed discovery, justified that their immersion into the choking stink of voiced passions by an inarticulate collective was well worth the illness brought on by their endeavor. It was not, nor could it ever be as the roles are always filled by understudies ill-prepared to assume their mentors’ vacancies, substituting imitation where the soul longs for originality.

So maybe it’s good enough then, because all things being equal, one proxy is as good as another if there’s a permanent absence of first thought. The hopeful can spin and startle, bending bodies and declaration with astonishing dexterity wasted on staid rumination, and if they know of their folly, then fine, but if not they will peacock proudly at their celebrated display and ignorantly accept reward. And the informed will snicker, hands over sharpened grins, eyes rolling as if following the ceaseless pendulum of good favor swinging over a teeming boil of prostrate need that reaches up, always too late, to seize a miracle and instead closes fist on the echo.

No better for their supposed truth, they sink into coffins decorated with the base lamentations of a swollen heritage, initial verse carved by hands divine in ambition that prove every follower a parasite, every pupil a mockery. Despite this, the hand, compelled to glide across the page leaving the stain of forced utterance, acts with passion of an insane mother, birthing each mewling cub with borrowed sin, and exceptions are allowed for these diminished returns because it’s what is known and has to be done.

1 thought on “It’s Been Said”
  1. Chloe Behrens July 16, 2013on4:52 pm

    Beautifully conveyed. Arrogant is the person who screams how original they are, when there isn't much in the world that hasn't already been done.

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