Careful, a little smurf whispered--
fix the cracks so the rain doesn't get in.

It was stormy out--that's true,
but it leaves one there to wonder whether she meant the rain that lashed the sides of that tiny hut as it hugged the edge of the sea-swept cliff--
or if, in fact, she spoke with intended eloquence of a more proverbial type of rain.

Either way, it began a journey into unexplored territory--
that of the vicious and tragic night that was to follow,
and an internal exploration of sorts that revealed far more than I think either of us, to this day, would care to admit.

In binding the sides of that hut closed to brave the elements,
we unintentionally bound pieces of ourselves--
figment upon figment, creating a connection of sorts that doesn't warrant much explanation--
but exists nonetheless.
Later we lay in a heap under moth eaten blankets and listened to the cacophonous symphony that played above our heads--
careful not to let go, completely.

And when the sun rose some hours later,
and the clouds parted above the white-capped waves
a tiny dart of sunlight nibbled its way through the window and rested on the mass-like lump that was us.

While the morning held its breath,
I listened carefully for her delicate wisdom,
but she'd gone like the storm--
leaving behind the walls we'd bound so tightly against the rain.

It's like we've all forgotten that everyone else has a soul, too.
Like the entire world has suddenly become so monochromatic that all we know is our internal dialogue--the things we feel and the reasons we do things for--but we're all overlooking that small detail that everyone else has this inner narrator as well.
The ignorance-is-bliss people forgot to mention that we aren't all ignorant--and so one man's bliss may be another's ultimate irritation, or worse...
I spent a month in a rabbit hole--
only to come out and see that everyone else was still in theirs--
like Wiarton Willie, who died two days before Groundhog day, ten years ago...
Instead of pronouncing his death and finding a replacement [surely there are other groundhogs],
they found an old stuffed groundhog [because the latter had visibly begun to decompose], dressed him in a tuxedo, laid him in a coffin and put him on display to ten thousand squealing eight year-olds--who very quickly realized that Wiarton Willie was more stuffed cotton and coin-eyes, than psychic ground-animal...
Who cares? I dare you to ask--
because we all think the rest of the world is oblivious--
we all think that our actions are either futile and unnoticed, or over the heads of the highest reaching top-hats...
we think we're invincible--
to others, to our lives..to our deaths--
we're not. We're visible;
in every sore facet of being--everyone can see--through us, over us,
and in the worst cases--into us.

Everybody has an expiration date--
sore thumbs, they stick out of shirt collars parading up the street;
if we're all so different--if there is such a hierarchy of being,
then why do we all die?
Get over yourselves! I'd like to tell you all--
but then I'd have to get over myself too..
and I'm just not willing to do that, yet.

...and what do you do to remedy that unequivocal feeling that you are dispensable?
when the entire world has forgotten you--and you don't care, because the people that really matter--those that are intrinsic to your sense of self, they haven't--
but then they do..
and you're left in a void of neither here nor there, and completely, utterly and entirely alone..
all those things you'd thought they'd meant,
all those things that seemed so real in so many moments that passed--
they all became arbitrary in that second when everything disintegrated and left you cold..
and though you shiver in the dark and search blindly for a hand to grasp onto--
and though you hope that a warm touch will reach out and pull you back,
it never comes.
...you're left to wander the cliff edges of pitch-noir, scrambling on mountain sides,
hoping not to fall into the abyss that waits so patiently for your return--
you've been here before--
but not for many years, and all those memories you'd thought you'd left in this darkness..they've all been waiting for you--
and now here, on your own, they emerge from the darkest shadows and welcome you back
with shrill cries and archaic rage--
these terrifying nightmares that dominated everything you knew up until you said goodbye--
up until you were welcomed into sun-light with rose petals polka-dotting your 'i's...
and the world had opened its eyes and seen you in an instant--
everything folded up like origami and fit perfectly into a package labelled, 'me'.
...they all made you feel like you'd come home--
like those years of blackened torture had all been some silly nightmare that was now over--
and had never been as bad as you'd imagined.
..and you believed them..you believed everything they said because in those moments it had all seemed so distant--
so now, back where you started all those years ago,
you wonder--
was there ever a time when there was neither sunshine nor pitch-noir?
when life just flowed, because it could--
when neither the world and its lies nor the deepest black and its nightmares dominated your dementia,
when all that you knew made sense--
simply because that's how it was supposed to be.