a fragile sanctuary
Weaving across the blunt truth of reality, is a fragile, tenderly crafted fabric of lies. Easily torn, easily dissected, yet held sturdy together by belief, hope, ignorance, and the like.
It is there—a veil of deception draped over your eyes, concealing us from the actuality of the world, that which would tear through the cloth with merciless force, unyielding in its destruction. It is there—yet not really. For in your eyes, the lie is your truth. Your ignorance is your reality. You live contentedly in this beautiful world, a stylised scape tailored for you.
And we cannot lament the absence of truth, cannot feel contempt nor gratitude for the shield of lies, for how are we to hold judgment for that which we do not know of?
You are merely content in this state of tranquility, unconcerned with all else.
It is similar to a metaphorical Fata Morgana. It is the meticulous brushstrokes of a lie overlaying the grim reality underneath, much like viscous honey coating a pill, carefully prepared for a child’s consumption, so that they do not taste the underlying bitterness.
However, reality is that the child will grow, and sooner or later discover the actuality of the pill taste.
To be forever sheltered by a beautiful lie is a whimsical dream, wanted and abhorred, ideal yet unrealistic; should it be ripped off, torn apart ferociously in a brutal awakening of reality, the backlash can be severe.
In the end, a beautiful lie is beautiful for as long as it stays. In the considerably improbable situation of being able to sustain this untruth forever, the lie is preferable—for me.
Nothing beats Truth
Telling a lie to spare someone else's feelings? Don't know
that I can agree to that 'cause
I'm thinking the lie I might be telling to someone now could
prove chaotic in the long run.
I know truth can hurt. Sometimes like a blade it can wound the receiver in an instant penetrate implanting deep. That's perhaps when it's taken the wrong way, though, I feel.
The heart can feel weak and
hurt as though it's been dealt
a physical blow. Yet truth,
I'll choose truth, there's nothing
like it to reach out of love for a soul to come to grips with reality. Truth compares with medicine in the way that it can
be bitter and kind of hard to
swallow but once you do, it
makes for a better healthier you
in contrast to the you there was
formally.
When the mind slowly decays
“What’s wrong with that guy?” The kid sucked down on a lollipop when he asked. He was peering over at an elderly man some feet away who had stopped in the middle of the store. Next to him was his wife, offering her hand and asking what was going on herself.
“Oh no, oh no, oh no.” The man grabbed for his belt. His wife quickly scanned the area; no bathroom. People swarming the couple all around. “Oh no, oh no, oh no.” A look of terror in his eyes. He shuffled his hands all about his waistband, his breathing hard to regulate as something within him grabbed hold and paralyzed him in shock.
“Do you need to go to the bathroom?” She put his hand in hers. “Come let’s go to the bathroom . . . . Sir, which way is the bathroom?” An employee answered her quickly.
“No,” he told her. “No, no!” The kid with his lollipop, now surrounded by friends, remained fixated on the couple as they shimmied about. What could it be these old folks were dealing with?
“Kids, don’t look.” An authoritative figure, one of the kids’ parents. He looked at them and looked beyond, and he kept them back from looking and talking.
“What a dumb old man!” Cried one of the kids. “Don’t they know there’s bathrooms at the front?” A boy in the group failed to find a trash can, and instead of rummaging and asking for one, he easily threw the slobbery stick onto the floor. Not his problem, hardly a mess.
The couple pressed on, she scared and he mortified. But he didn’t need to use the bathroom. She had figured out right before she walked him in what really was going on. His belt around his waist had been pulled too tight, and his terror stemmed primarily from the minute tinge of pain inflicted from its leather. She teared up her eyes as she fixed the issue, in front of people much younger and much faster than them.
“What am I doing here?”
The lady took him home that night after half an hour of walking around the store, helping her husband, fixing his belt. She hadn’t been out of the house much in weeks due to his inability to be out and keep up straight. He hadn’t been out in months. His bathroom habits were frequent and nonstop, and her patience tried what it could to keep up. But something pained her most when she left with him that day.
“We live together?” He asked her. And she, for the life of her, couldn’t remember what had come of their cart.
The Beaten Horse
I suppose if I felt so inclined to be whittle-brained enough to expose my mind to enough elements, I could theoretically live in a beautiful lie. I mean- If I wanted to get my ass thrown into the nearest medical ward and be deemed unfit for society, I could definitely do all that, but I'm a realist and a pessimistic one at that. I have jumped into the fray, jostled with demons and chuckled amongst men as if I am the wolf in sheep's clothing, ready to tear off my skin and wreak havoc into the flock over one very delicately 'justified' moment, but I am- again, a realist.
The very notion of jumping into the crowd like a crazed knife-wielding maniac would be no different than me being plastered over the front of your television like some dim-witted massacring asshole trying to assert that he's very much fucking heard. And I can assure you he isn't being heard, he's just seen and he'll be ridiculed even more from now than he already is.
I already have lived in the muddiest and murkiest of bogs, trudged through bullshit infested waters and swallowed enough sludge to spew it back out like someone who's been whiffing arsenic in a factory a little too long. No. The ugliness in truth is where I live, and there is comfort in ugly, because the lie- The lie is only beautiful when you are ignorant and dumb, dimwitted to the surroundings and just as much open to being the laughing stock of all the ones around you who cast judgement on your lack of awareness. I have been the mockery of many discussions, the outcast of communities, and the strange and odd where every other complacent fellow was upright and exonerated of their behaviors, because 'that's just the way they were' and anything I did even in mimicry of them was to be completely and utterly condemned. No. I am not them... And they are not me.
The ugliness is far more beautiful than the farce of some 'beauty' I force-feed myself to fall asleep at night until I wake up and it isn't.
the truth is:
i could tell you that ignorance is bliss
but it isn’t.
the truth is: I’m covered in it.
the lies fall like loose-fitting fabrics
and the truth is black and blue.
but I don’t remember it.
my body keeps the memories my brain cannot
I bleed somewhere I cannot see
my skin wears scars not scabs
etched into my figure, permanently
the one in the mirror staring back at me
I recognize her only sometimes, in short bursts
in overalls with my favorite t-shirt underneath
but most days I gaze blankly at someone he calls “pretty”
sometimes “cute” and maybe “sexy”
all I see is emptiness, missing spaces, blurry
what I know is this: when he touches me
it’s not beautiful
it’s just a lie.
- beautiful lies lie on beautiful eyes lying on beauty
Ugly truth
Because at least it is truth. Why live with the wonder and the emptiness of some twisted beauty in a lie, only for it to come crashing down, as all lies do? I'd rather know straight up front the truth, because not only am I searching for it, this way I have clear vision and can rise from a tragity instead of wasting my time with a lie. As tempting as a tailored lie is. I'd still rather have the real thing and not waste my strength chasing something I know deep down I can't have, something that will tear me apart because it's not ultimately what I want.
Thank you for this challenge, thank you for being you.