Beauty, My Tormentor

I always look for beauty in the ugliest places. Perhaps that's because I'm afraid of actually finding it. Perhaps that's because I have no sense of direction.

There are nights when my body cries out for beauty. These are night of terrible agony. These nights are fingers pointing deep into space. At the most distant stars. They are voice-boxes repeating, "that is where you are not. That is where you must go."

I sit in the grass and shoot rubberbands at the stars.

Some nights I stay there til the sun lights my face and evaporates the beads of morning dew from my eyebrows.

Til the stars succomb to the morning rays. Become absent and forgotten dreams. Drowned babies in a river of monotony.

I am relieved. Ugliness is much easier to endure.

It lets you live, lets you die, lets you think on concrete things. Like grocery lists and bills.

But beauty, when you peak through the clouds at night, you whisper of forgotten things, secret things, Godly things. You make us feel what we oughtn't feel. You make us want what we cannot have.

When I see your precious light, I ought to blot you out. Close my curtains and turn off my lights. Roll over to the farthest wall and ignore your siren call.

For you are the great destroyer. You are my tormentor.

You love my pain and I love thee.
You call my name, then run and hide.
You mock me as I search for thee.
You lead me out into the night and abandon me to thieves.

I'll grow old one day and weary of your endless labyrinth. A search in vain for that fairy that does not want to be found. I'll turn my eyes to knowledge. And pursue you in the light. I'll give your name to other things, much easier to find. I'll give your name to money and I'll give your name to vice, I'll give your name to my first child and claim you for my wife. I'll give your name to ease, I'll give your name to peace. And when I draw my final breath I'll give your name to death.