Slashing and stabbing
Warm blood splashing the paper
A story is told
To all past, present, and future lovers;
To my brethren in blood and in choice;
To the adrenaline junkies and seekers of thrill;
To those who seek to suffer in search for greatness:
Growing up, I was a bit of a dreamer, vividly constructing and building a grand landscape filled with my greatest visions and hopes for the future; an architect of my own world, sketching blueprints that I and only I could see. Delusional at worst and prophetic at best, young Tony was never in doubt that the creative juices would smolder as time marched on and children grew older. I was living in fast times, and although I did not attend Ridgemont High, I often viewed life as if she were some scantily clad brunette slowly rising from the warm waters of the pool as the rays of light glistened on her sun-kissed skin.
So as I once again kiss you on the cheek, wrap my arm around you, and sit back to watch the sunset, I come to tell you that I have been on a journey to far-away lands. In fact, this journey occurs with regular occasion, and despite having been there and back one-thousand times over, every time I pack my overnight bag, I cannot help but feel the stinging ulcer of dread eroding away my insides like a suicidal man in the kitchen cleaner aisle.
Time and time again, the allure of great triumph creeps into my mind and dances around like a sugar plum; yet I am no slumbering child on the Eve of Christmas, and Santa wrote my name on the naughty list in cold, black ink. Fuck you Santa. No, this dream of success is not a neatly wrapped present sitting underneath the decorated fir. No half-baked textbook or midwit how-to guide could have shown me the ropes. No underpaid public school teacher had the capacity to tell me what it really means to do what I do, and what millions other venture out to do every waking hour of the day. Like many of you, I had to figure it out myself.
When you first stand at the foot of the rickety, rackety, rotting rope bridge, the one that spans the never-ending abyss of aspiration, this allure is deeply entrenched in my mind. You can’t help but peer over the edge as you inch your way across the unstable woodwork that supports the weight of your body. Will I fall? What happens if I fall? Is that the end? Millions of thoughts race through your mind at the worst possible time. The abyss smiles back, and down below you see hallucinations; hard-cover titles with your name on it, mistresses and beach models fraying the binding, the illusion of self-actualization, as if it is some end game. You have to catch yourself and pry yourself up one too many times, and by the time you stumble onto safe land on the other side, you’ve already exhausted yourself.
But the journey does not stop there. Up the mountain you go, and yes, it should look familiar, because it is one you constructed yourself. After all, you are a grand dreamer, and an architect of your own world, digging up soil just to put it back on planet Earth in a different location, erecting obstacles in open fields, staying up late for the sake of intentional sleep deprivation - you know this song and dance. The mountain is one hundred billion times taller than Mount Everest, and yet you know the terrain like the back of your trembling, sweaty hand. Every speck of dirt, every crevice, every nook and cranny, it’s all familiar to you. And as you trudge up the North face, you notice all of the wannabes and dreamers who failed to climb their own version of the same mountain. Those skulls and crossbones are a sobering sight; the death and destruction reminds you of just how dangerous and slippery this slope can be. Unfinished passages and unfulfilled ideas scatter the barren landscape, and you can’t help but take a glance at what could have been. Potential is one of life’s most dangerous phenomena; one moment and you are on top of the world, and the very next moment you are awoken in a cold sweat, five years have gone by, and you realize you have been asleep at the proverbial wheel the entire time, and now you are being cuffed and stuffed in the back of the cop car of life. Brutal, man, brutal.
And yet that sweet voice of your muse, your temptress, leads you on, and as you near the top, your body begins to break down, and your mind takes full reigns of the vehicle perpetuating through the space-time continuum. Her words grow louder and stronger, and you begin to make out what she is saying. That word echoes in the caverns of your cranium, and although you are dogged tired and burnt out, you are simply too close to turn back now. Imagine if you became one of the wannabes? Your unfinished masterpiece protruding from the dust, slowly eroding away like an abandoned monument from an ancient civilization. And yet those ancient civilizations had something to show for themselves.
When you finally reach the top, you act shocked that there are no smokeshow women, piles of riches, or phony awards waiting for you in a neatly decorated throne room. Instead, there are but two mere objects sitting on the ground - a pocketknife as sharp as an Orca’s tooth, and a wilting piece of paper, browned and frayed from experiencing the elements of the summit. There is only one thing to do, and so you grab the pocketknife with your offhand, and carefully made a surgeon’s incision on your dominant hand. And sure enough, the fresh blood begins to leak out of your mortal flesh. It is the most uncomfortably satisfying feeling in the world, and you crack a grimacing smile as the drops begin to splatter the paper. One by one, drop by drop, the deep red liquid showers the blank canvas that is your paper, covering it in a pattern that you and only you could create. In flesh, you were dying. A doctor might suggest you stitch that wound up, slather it in peroxide, and place a bandage over it to shield it from the nastiness of the world. And yet as you stand there dying, those pieces of you formed something beautiful and greater than one’s self. And after a short while, you would swathe that wound, and the heavens would look upon your masterpiece, your blood-soaked stationery, and no matter what…
That’s right - you thought there was a happy ending. You thought you got to wake up a jolly old fella on Christmas Day, and those sugar plums would be sitting there on the table with a steaming cup of fresh coffee. No sir. Not today. Our work here is not finished. Because off in the distance stand thousands of more mountains, moated by thousands of more valleys of aspirations, accessible only through thousands of more rickety, rackety, rotting rope bridges….
Your only hope is that you have enough blood to tell the story at the top of the next peak. I’m confident we will.
Onward,
Tony
Humble Wordsmith
Bleeder on the Page
City Slicker
Shirtless Wanderer
Tell Your Friends
Boy does this pack a punch! Well done.
Let’s keep bleeding on the pages my friend. Excellent piece.