We are born, and we suffer until we go;
We live till we die, and that's all we know,
Neither what the purpose nor whose the game
To make us, break us, with pain and shame.
We are brought to a board where there's all we wish---
But the cook's gone mad and has fouled each dish;
We can plan and make; we can think and do---
But the prize is a husk, worm-eaten, too;
Our minds are a marvel, as all agree,
And our bodies as well, but the two don't gee,
So they live in a permanent tug of war,
To each the other a scab and a bore;
And we have two sexes, fashioned to mate
In the flesh so well, but their spirits hate,
So the joy of a body is no part
Of the soul's delight and dies in the heart
Of a gangrenous blight. Yet we plant the seed
For the force of our lust and callously breed
A brood to inherit our rotten lot
And to scorn and hate us, as why should they not
When we act the lunatic Judas goat
For the miserable get on whom we dote;
Though they are as silly and warped as we,
As doomed to despair and futility,
As bound to be robbed of whatever they crave,
As lucky in finally finding a grave.
But we blather to them what was blithered to us
And babble our praise of the barbarous,
So that they in turn can swindle their kith
With a pitiful, sniveling, coward's myth
Of the wisdom and plan behind it all;
"Sing praise and let the hosannas fall!"
Is the constant bellow of dupe to dupe,
The idiot maundering of the group,
All bleating their fables in coined belief---
But leave an adult to his knowledge and grief.
And so another quarter is past, and I must post. It is a law I find, that the more distraught I am the less diction I command, and yet--
The above is an excerpt from John Myers Myers excellent _Silverlock_. If you are unfamiliar, by all means, go read the book. Save catastrophe I'll wait until you're back.
Good. Now you know that although the above is marvelously pithy, it is by no means the common tone of the novel; in the words of the immortal Wm. Goldman, there is "Fencing. Fighting. Torture. Poison. True love. Hate. Revenge. Giants. Hunters. Bad men. Good men. Beautifulest ladies. Snakes. Spiders. Beasts of all natures and descriptions. Pain. Death. Brave men. Coward men. Strongest men. Chases. Escapes. Lies. Truths. Passion. Miracles." Although in truth there are rather more strongest men in the world in _The Princess Bride_, and rather more ennui, despair, selfishness, transformation, and the recovery of hope and promise in _Silverlock_. Also far more poetry. Some day I'll post on the excellence of the "Death Lay of Bowie Gizzardsbane," and track down all the allusions of "The River Runs South."
What occasions my theft of words is the last month having the longest succession of depressions of my life. I shall write as if explaining, though I do not intend that this should ever be seen by any but me: I have occasional weakness emotionally whereby if I become down, I can not get up to face the day(s), usually two or three. In this last month, I didn't report to my job or worship God for three weeks. I made it up enough not to soil myself and to eat every two or three days, but I could find no drive.
Edited 2008 Apr 16 Wednesday to note that this set of depressions lasted longer than any other in my life; if measure made sense in oblivion, I'd say it was worse than any other period of my life. That I've risen since Easter I can exemplify thus: a friend and I ate lunch today, and he didn't understand why I was so severely afflicted--I had explained some of my triggers to him previously, and so he suggested that I might hate myself due to latent pedophilia or homosexuality. I then laughed that off, which is my example of grace--thank God, I do not struggle in those ways; if I did, would I have the strength to write this? Would I still write at all? And my friend's point was not gaucherie or cruelty: there is hope enough for us all. Even for me. Even those who conflate sex and children, or who unlearn manhood and become as women, to men; or unlearn womanhood and become as men, to women.
