The Art Of Deprivation

I can't turn it off like I used to be able to do.  Or should I say that I wont? (because can't lives on wont street)  It sure feels like can't though.  It was my conscious safety net for years.  I felt so much that I couldn't handle it so I turned everything off.  I used the song "Third-Day-To-Forever" when I first heard it.  I remember the numbing effect it had on me, how it totally enveloped me, that protection from her, from me, from anything... It was the only thing I knew.  I sure didn't know how to handle love.  I know I can't deal with things this way any longer.  I know that when it turns back on, no matter how long it was off, those demonic feelings wait for you.  There is no escape from those feelings, only temporary illusions of absence.  They lurk in dreams, showing inescapable situations until you wake up hoping they were only dreams and then realize that reality is more frightening and inescapable.  Sooner or later, we must deal with what we have been dealt, be it pain, regret, abandon, fire, or just more emotion than we are used to dealing with...

This is why I often sit dreaming of slicing my wrists in vertical fashion, of flying swan style off the Henry Hudson Hotel, of pressing a 45 against my temple, of placing my big toe on the trigger of a double barrel shotgun - because I feel these things.  If I shut them off, I will only have to deal with them later.  If I deal with them now, maybe they'll go away sooner, but not only that - I can not live a lie anymore... To live asleep holds nothing for me.  You may say 'you'd be happy, comfortable, safe' but I do not believe in that life.  I do not want a comfortable life.  I do not want some illusion of safety.  I don't believe in its existence, not on that realm.  And the word 'happy' is a signature on the credit card receipt of the sale of your human soul... 

Deprivation truly is beautiful.  To deprive yourself or to be deprived of that which you need, want, and desire, by your beloved, by your conditions, or by yourself, no matter who or what that is, is beauty beyond compare... In deprivation, you feel each and every slice from the blades of the ticking clock, as if it truly existed.  Every waking moment is testament of that agony.  Every distraction is seen for what it is in light of that deprivation, a distraction only, a moment of shelter, but just by realizing it, or thinking of it, you manhandle the blades once more.  There is no escape, no true shelter, no quarter given.  In sleep, dreams come to you, of comfort, of a lovers face, of her lips, her touch, her love, but you wake, yet again deprived, and it hurts that much more, because for those moments, you thought that comfort might have been real.. 

Water, hot, while showering, sitting, at the bottom of a tub, with each drop hitting you, one after the next, incessantly, yet frozen in the moments between time and what comes next, the steam rising, enveloping you in the fogs of comfort, soothe the aching heart, but for moments only.  In each moment between, time attacks you, and the water betrays you,  by giving you the space to think, to daydream, to indulge in fantasies, of comfort, love, a woman's touch... Yet again, deprived.  It is only you, dreaming, alone.  But this is the essence of appreciation, the opposite of granted, of taking a moment for granted.  In every self-indulgent masochistic moment that I sit here and fantasize of death, or love, or comfort of any kind, I can appreciate this moment, alive, truly understanding what this 'time' is handing me, the gifts possessed.  I am aware - asleep or awake - of my choices, of my emotions and feelings, of my pain, and my soul's deprivation.  This is art.