Portraits of Ghosts

Perhaps it's me and my obsession with surfaces, appearances. Those shallow facades. Are they as shallow as we say? Is it true that you can't judge a book by its cover? So often I do. I find it difficult to appreciate a book or an album without appropriate decoration (or lack thereof). And sans decoration (that is to say, removed from the context of decoration), it becomes a man without skin. A building without walls. Drafty and cold, freezing when the winter comes.

* * *

How long does it take to know someone? Longer than that moment of recognition? When you and they meet eyes and recognize yourselves within?

How many perfect lovers with unasked names? How many unitroduced best friends abandoned? The adventures we'd have, the lives we'd lead. Why do we let ourselves pass by?

Tell me, are these impulses merely physical responses to outward stimuli? Or is it something deeper we feel? Metaphysical. Why do we, so often, suppress that call, that magnetism that pulls and pushes us?

For logic, cold and brutal,
for reason, for society,
for ease,
for conventional wisdom,
for accountability,
for the sanity of our parents.

Do you advise that we abandon the warmth and mystery of the living forest to build cold mansions of reliable steel? And live out our days long, safe, and lonely?

* * *

I don't mean prettiness. I don't mean attractiveness.
I mean beauty. That is to say earnestness. Or perhaps truth.