Looking out into the haze ridden air, breathing the stench that consumes us...that stench called life, this burden I carry upon me is too heavy. Faces around me only confirm that I am not like the rest of you, I will never be like the rest of you. The sun smiles only on those whose backs are as white and smooth as porcelin, and well protected from its true decietful nature. My soul, like my back, is scorched and scarred beyond recognition. Struggle, survive, struggle, survive, the cycle never ends. As we grow older our friends show us their true nature...it is reborn before us. With unhappiness in our eyes, we snip the umbilicle cord with one clean gesture...severing the ties that used to bind us to that person. I will forget you all, just like the others. I long for the cold. I welcome its hard frigid lashes across my face, especially on long walks through the streets filled with poverty and self mutilation. My eyes escape nothing. The cold air reminds you that you are still alive...that there is still feeling left inside you. Alone on cold streets, alone with your thoughts, that is a pleasure to be relished...let the weak and the ignorant huddle by their fireplace, warm and content...dreaming of a future which will never exist. I dont have to obsess over those kind of trivial thoughts, for I already know where my future ends...oblivion. I am looking for something, someone, a face that holds the same agonizing features and characteristics as mine...a face that holds invisible scars, a monstrous contorted face that life has been severely unmerciful too. I try to smell them out, pick up there scent... I do here and there but it is too weak or scarce and just when I think ive found someone, i turn only to find in dissapointment it is but my own reflection...staring aimlessly into the glass shop window of a department store, or into a rippled puddle on the street. Ceaseless solitude beckons me to recollect happier times when I was a Roman gladiator and my blood, when spilled, held meaning and value. From far above, my fleeting spirit glances down at me one last time. I see myself being ripped to shreds by starved and deranged lions in the bloody arena. The roar and epileptic frenzied shouts and screams from the spectators is deafaning. To my astonishment, one of the lions is licking me instead of masticating...his eyes are as golden as a wheat field on fire. Against the blue sky, the sun filters through his soft brown mane and reminds me of my birth place... the poppy fields. Im forced to smile... even in death there is kindness.

Copyright ©2005 Bailey Hicks

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