Lost

          I am so lost and I am so goddamn lost. Why oh why am I so lost? I have no clue. I have no goddamn clue, not even a fucking hint of a shred of a fucking scrap of an IDEA – a fucking idea, what a notion – of what is what. What is what? Who the fuck knows, not me that’s for sure. Lost. How am I lost? There’s supposed to be a trail, with a nice long picket fence and friendly people standing there to point the way, to say, “You need to keep going down the fence, silly!” and then I say “thank you very much” and I go but instead it’s one fucking pole in the ground. Just one pole. That’s where you start. That’s where you’re born, at the stupid fucking pole. It sits there and it’s old – it’s ancient really – and it’s sitting in the ground and there’s a sign. And there’s no words on the sign because the pole is so old that it comes from before words. The sign just has a drawing, which is ↓. That’s all, just an arrow. And you figure it out. Where do you go? There’s just a pole and you’re alone. And that pole is your birth. When you come out into the universe, when you achieve thought. That’s the start of your brain, and that’s what the pole is here to commemorate. And everyone starts at the old fucking pole, and goes off into the desert. And they come across one another and sometimes they say “hello” and other times it’s “fuck you” and then they don’t see each other anymore because they are dead. And the pole’s still there and it looks the same with the same fucking arrow.

          But there is a trick, so I’m told. The trick is to just go somewhere. Have a purpose and just go there. Leave the pole and head in the direction you want to follow. And when you are far enough and you get there, then you’re done.

          But other people say “fuck that” and that the trick is not about going somewhere but about being someone. And to be someone you go from place to place and then you plant a pole and you can measure the distance like it’s your fucking erection and compare to the national average. Some people do very well, and they have big lives with big shit, and other people don’t like to bring it up because they’re embarrassed that they haven’t done jack shit and they were better off at the pole at the start.

          But other people have another trick and that is pretending the pole’s not there, and that’s what I like. Pretend it’s not there. There is no pole. And you close your eyes and you grope in the dark. And it’s scary because you could find a monster and you will die and such but who gives a shit. And eventually you will die and it won’t really matter that you were just groping in the dark because maybe one time you found a quarter on the ground, and another time you put your hand in shit, and another time you touched someone else and they touched you back. And that won’t matter but none of it really mattered so might as well explore a little.

          But that trick is a hard trick. I don’t know if I can master that trick. I can try it, but you’re lost if you try that trick. And you don’t know if you’re going to get absolutely fucked, or if you’re going to pull it together. And it may not really matter because you’ll still die but while you’re alive you’d like it to be pleasant since you prefer it that way most of the time. And it feels like a bit of a waste, and you can see a lot of circumstances where it would have been a better call to follow something or be someone but that doesn’t account for the end. That doesn’t account for what happens after you follow the thing or be the person. Why does it need to be pleasant? Why does it matter if you die? I don’t know.

          I don’t know why it’s scary, but it is and that makes it scarier. I don’t know why I get to start at the pole but I do and that’s scary too. And I don’t know if I’ll ever find solace or if I should even try and that’s scariest of all.

          But I can’t just be scared because then I’m just curled up at the old pole looking like a dumbass, and you find out that the arrow just points you out to other people. And then you’re embarrassed because you didn’t reach as far as they, you didn’t try as hard as they, and you didn’t live as well as they. All that you’ve accomplished is you can abstain: you can give up. That’s easy because everyone does that. Everyone dies. So you need to explore the inertia. What is the inertia? Is it ever good to not being going somewhere or becoming someone or groping something? Loneliness is that moment of inertia coming and inhabiting you. Fogging up your glasses, asking you politely to slow down please and thank you. Stay still. And then you realize that while you had stopped the pole was creeping up on you and now you’re back at the start and you run away.

You run far, far to the hills and mountains and streams and valleys and all that sappy shit and you cry to the wind and the trees that you don’t know, that you’re lost and they don’t give a shit they’re just THE WIND AND THE TREES. Get back on your knees, boy. Grope in the dark some more.