Standard issue personality

Soft?

No.

Gentle? 

No.

Warm?  

No...

Comforting?  

Uh, no.

Sweet? cheerful? encouraging? Happy?

No, no, no and no.

...

...

Oh, here we go.  Nurturing? Patient? Kind?

Hmm, not really.

Well, let's just skip the rest of the page.  Don't get to these appendices often. Not big enough or young enough for most of this... Here; resilient, cunning, sharp, narrow, focused, potentially lethal, quick.

That seems about right.

Prognosis, somewhere between a boning knife and a main gauche.  Doesn't seem to fit very well with your current position.

It was all that was open. Something about anachronisms.  

Could you at least slow down on the bloodshed?

Hello?!?  Sharp pointy end or short handle, not even a hot spot for cauterizing.

Use this.  It isn't so much a sheath as some flat bits to run along the edges.  Hold very still, should minimize damage. Hopefully an other option'll turn up.

Great, hold still and wait.  That's not very helpful for them?

At least it isn't causing more wounds.

colossus

Beguiling, pleading, maddeningly flitting, lightest caress, mostly imagined touch. Crass, obscene digits, massively outweighing the dulcet sprite, held statue still, painfully so.

Mindless of environs, absorbed with details, the hummingbird examines each fold and whorl.  Seemingly waiting for some other action, a better pose, more secure perch. 

The slightest quiver, barely perceptible, enough to chase away. Not far, over and over, return, flight, return.

Through tears, gazing at the wreckage, the monolith adjusts. Consciously not closing the distance. The quietest whisper a gale, glances literally piercing, to hold is to crush.  Wings and bodies, still pathetically thrumming, litter the ground.  Deep enough to impede movement, disguising the terrain. 

No need for further discouragement, the approach, fraught and unsteady, barely passable, useless now. And still constant invitations form a steady, impatient stream.

Desperately surveying the field for clues, composing a bird's eye view for some strategy, hope, sense. No pattern, nothing meaningful.

Instead, every subtlety, innuendo, artifice gracefully evaded. All things direct overbearing. No middle ground, no common language. Instincts, even tuned with experience, constant dead ends, as testified by multiple mounds of writhing carnage splayed carelessly about where stood similar paths. Their existence doubtful, now, even to the one that tread upon them.

To turn is defeat, but forward, the cost precludes victory. Or, at least victory in any meaningful state. But more, how now to tell one victory for the other? Hope waning, grasps for comfort in stillness.

Patience, despised, spurned, convoluted, better than outright injury.  Silence, a lonely companion. 

stoic

Blithely wrapped in self-importance, stumps churning, the amputee fails to causally walk.  Crowds laughing as, unable to reach the counter, he props himself up with chairs and stools to order.

Still ignoring the deriders, he takes his order and slowly spills it in a long trail back to his table. Blissfully unaware of anything amiss while curses and shaking fists accompany his remains. 

I glance back at the commotion just previous to that fool, noting similar trail and detractors. Smugly trying to identify the entertainment.  No one obvious arises, I turn round to my table and think it passing odd that my drink eludes my nimble grip. Not once or twice, finally succumbing to a handful of attempts. The straw bends sharply and, unable to quench my thirst, I set it down again. Or, rather, drop it messily to the ground.  Hmm. Seeking distraction from selfawareness I hastily eye the wake before me. Without hesitation, I begin to follow the debris to its source. 

Wending back and forth in comical fashion I arrive.  At the same counter from a different angle.  Retracing steps reveals freshly spilled beverage. Outrage and embarrassment wage with no clear victor.  I stumble...have been stumbling all along, to sanctuary. Sinks and stalls for moat and ramparts. 

There revealed, the fool stands transfixed, by himself as laughable effigy of man.  

Wave upon wave crash down. History, memories, scars. Intricate wrappings, insulating, shielding, falter. Through alabaster, veined with fractures, unwelcome guests return. 

Blindness, though welcome abatement, is not the culprit.  Instead of seeing no colors at all, those reported by others find no match.  The beautiful landscape a negative, or more like, eyeless picking hues by sound and taste, rearranging each before arriving at my palette.

Thus reminded of the purpose and effectiveness, the barriers are re-erected.  Emotional handicap re-disguised as stereotypical male lack.

Battle lost

Gooey, rotten carnage. Stark warrior clad with overlapping, barely useful plates, gory, dripping, stares down.

Bucolic, tender, fragile corpse, or soon to be, unfocused eyes unflinching, covered with debris.

Contrast evident, comparison unlikely, yet still, some parallel stirs the senses.

As heinous gobs fall unnoticed, the two juxtapose. Ragged wounds and armored joints seamlessly match. Neither follow rhyme or reason, carelessly thrown together jabberwocky with macabre grin. 

Time's corridors thrown open, halcyon days revealed...

Utility unheeded, a child's drawing of a knight superimposed upon unwilling victim. The well worn paths of weapons now repelled by solid iron, adorning gangly frame.

Steeled and impervious, at least to movement, the new juggernaut beams in relief while underbelly enjoys respite.

Staggers in place of skips, teetering for running, stumbles where youthful joy once leapt. New callouses, blistering and raw, tears, at first of sorrow but then resolve as darts no longer find their mark. Grim determination succeeds, innocence cowers.

Confident strides, unwavering steps...not yet. Bowed down and shuffling, wracked with new pain, undeterred. 

The skein continues to unravel, miles of time, seconds measured on unforgiven ground. 

Ungraceful, strength replacing spry, uncomfortable still, but accepted, forged mail contiguous with self. Chitinous exoskeleton in proud array. 

Ghostlike echoes faintly heard from deepest corners. Strangely familiar battle scene. Upon reflection, weathered warrior finds nothing new.

Eons and light years, instants and angstroms, all collide; progress, depth, perspective, meaningless.

There, the footprints so match my own. There, the body, familiar, haunting. I turn, jerk with reflexive memory, find nothing, and ache. Would only death finally succeed, these taught threads release me. Wandering away without movement. The ground resists my best effort.  Bound to this death scene.  

Perception enfolds the environs. Cries of anguish, my own or the wrecked mass entombed behind me I can not tell, as realization dawns.  The aggressor and the condemned share more than just this duel, the weapons leave in bloody script a perfect signature. 

Uniquely matched, wound to blade. Staring, uncomprehending, devastated. I see the blows and skillful work that dispatched yon unfortunate. The furious, deadly dance is easily traced to a single set of prints.  Anguish, pale and vapid, brushed aside by passionate gale. 

Yang alone

Pavlovian channels, ever reticent to relinquish their prerogative, reinforced by spectators, unhappily, unconsciously, adding depth and grade, doom those within.

But, upon reflection, the barrier protects and insulates, entangles and promotes in equal measure. 

Desperately testing every spectrum, frequency and mixture for some small progress, and yet resigned, barely registering the identical results. Action, inaction, gentle murmur, sharp disabuse. Reaction and indifference likewise loathed. "Too much, tone down, calmer, nicer" the tearful cries. Met at counterpoints by "have an opinion, react, input, move!" equally recriminating with downcast eyes. 

Thread and thumbtack, protruding from soft wax prove more binding than shackles and concrete. The pachyderm, though once stout warrior, now restrained by lightest tug. Within the pen, the bronco tamer looses interest in the gentle pony, while, without,  spirited gallop offends genteel sensibilities.

Surely the greater wedge from reality is when madness sees itself as mad, and can do nothing to remedy. The sweet, blissful indulgence of unaware blithering, one reminisces. The voices, the light, the hefalumps and woozles. Alas, a gorge, the other side normalcy, as sole companion. No prescription, no couch, no asylum. 

The sharpest blow, repeatedly added to every consequence, comes from the pauper.  Previously, even still, begging for compassion, understanding, grace. Now finding fault in every glance, every syllable, every unvoiced breath. No irony, in utmost sincerity, petitioning contrary requests. Crushed by answers, impatient with waiting, unable or unwilling to compare. As ever, one finds the greatest fault in others with those sins in common. Margins of ability dwarfed by margins of sensitivity. Ludicrous, absurd, insoluble, churlish. 

Not content with any answer, miscommunication prolongs, delays the inevitable. Silence, misunderstood no less, brings closure, non-elysian, brooding, silence. 

Les Mis

It seems sincere. Heartfelt. Logical and unassuming. Incredulous and hurt as belief fails to follow request.

Madness: same action repeated, expecting change.

But, this too is madness, same action, ever flux.

Madness meet madness. Rather than 2 negatives making a positive, divide by zero.

Surely, if madness has receded this is clear.  The small, waning part of the beachhead that has stood bears witness. Is the nightmare fading, relenting or is that spark the vestige of twilight, spent and dying?  The two are the same. The cusp indistinguishable.  After so long, it doesn't matter. The cycle ever flows, not clockwork.  Nothing gentle or predictable.  Darkness shouting, claiming sanity uses the same voice as clarity's pleas.

The constant comes from fragility.  Both crush, fall under featherweight of doubt, mere probing to discover which is which likewise wounds. More, self aware of failing causes added pressure. A weight shared by gaoler and prisoner alike. The difference becoming less clear. Now even hesitation and inaction are perceived as blows. The former caretaker stricken, finds no means of communicating care or even, if ever capable, compassion. Watching as every blink, touch, breath is mislaid, contorted into battle.

Worse, even with the unwelcome guest at bay, intentions are cruelly twisted by habit, blindness, apathy, weakness, exhaustion.

Numb. Fatigued. No longer able to tell if freedom is worth... freedom, wholeness, are they?

Outside cares little for petty squabble. The mouths continue to suckle on any teat, latching to whatever fills them. 

This past can not escape notice. The break in clouds no longer musters hope, so often dashed with worse end. Madness meet madness.

Hope and expectations, trembling.  Flinching from misuse.  No relief as, with dawns break, prisoner runs free. Unwilling, unable to hie behind, still unsure of boundaries but sure of that which never worked before, a cell remains occupied. 

Reproof and misunderstanding the only companions.

Spiral with no center

So many layers, so many boundaries, so many rules.  No pen is fine enough, no paper large enough to show proper detail. Weighing heavily, they strain actions and words. The burden taints responses, magnifies the distortion, misunderstanding compounded by mistranslation. Nothing linear, easy, simple.

At first, still uneven, coarse, unused to fluency and fluidity in metathought, the seeming leaps and starts of conversation, harsh overtones, unveiled contempt. Mutual refining, unperfect, yet tolerance increases, understanding by degrees. Pace unquestioned previously, too many, too much, too fast. Slowing some, easing some. Unburdened with talent, solvency, or other means, efficiency and ritual become armor. Care and rigor prolong, reuse and strict, measured economy circumvent waste. Here more than anywhere the gap is felt. Protective or restrictive by turn.

Then, barriers torn down.  New, unknown beginning. Without reference, uncharted, threshold not measurable.  Every word, syllable, nod, twitch, blink, relearned. Or, unlearned. Without commonality, in place of two become one, there is only one. 

Learning, understanding, growing. Impossibility. Tracks in the sand, pollen in the air, rumor whispered to the deaf, ghostly glimpse for the blind. Repetition, pattern are not. Without boundaries, all equally does not fit, injures, bemuses. Lacking necessary counterbalance, top flies wildly out of orbit. Restoration not possible, new balance, new axis, new path. Ramifications not explored nor realized, no recourse, no correction, no return. Not so important for the one. 

One? more or less. Mostly less. The other, not cognisant of absence, unaware. Yet, one not truly one. Nonawareness does not shield, does not abate implications. Awareness comes and goes, existence wavers, brick wall resists efforts of disbelief. 

Two? more or less. Much less. Acceptable collateral damage, no. Consensus, no. Decision, yes. 

New path, new scenery, choices not new. Results, new, not new, new, injury, pain, entropy.

Two? Two. But not. Awareness of bonds. Struggle, scream, run.  Bonds rupture, injuries spread. Now sensate, revived, flush with life and zeal, marshal the troops.

One. But more.  Reactions spread, counteraction. Consensus contested. Words, actions, now foreign. Each one a salvo, assailing the other. Description becomes prescription. Apology becomes defense. Contorted, not recognized, even by sender. Neutral zone shifts, aggressive, active, reflexive.

Progress? Goal? Direction... Standard struck, bearer kneels. Cost too much. Consequences too many. No forward, no back, no thought. Surely white flag denotes cooperation. Reconnoiter, rejoin.  Come back?

Two. Distinct, disparate. Path? Unknown.