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| Garth ~ by P.I. 2017 |
The coal sucked at the end of his roll-up casts orange highlights on the edifice of his face. A face where avid climbers have, and will continue to, hammer aspirational spikes to anchor their ascent, as if he were a stepping stone on the cliff face of their hollow ambition.
He holds no real bitterness for their shallowness… well, perhaps a sliver of bitterness left on his tongue-tip, left by their duplicity, unconscious or otherwise.
In his more forgiving moments, he imagines that they were as clueless as he, just taking things as they came before them. And then, in darker moments he reasons no: in order to actively manipulate, one is required to practise a modicum of craft. And he asks himself, ‘how does one come to that place so young - that conscious weighing of odds that requires one to get one over on those around you, to have influence; to be the guru – and to label it friendship?’
He sucks another smoke-lung; blows a cloud of doubt across the view and forces his lips into a smile; a skill he has recently learned; a skill that he is happy to have acquired; for to smile is to make a statement, to cast oneself upon those around you. And, he realises, those who have no choice but to wear their heart upon their sleeve must eventually learn that both the heart and sleeve are assets to be held close and cherished; to be held as symbols of honesty. He wonders if he should give the benefit of doubt to the possibility that that heart-on-sleeve honesty cannot always be agreeable to those whose hearts and sleeves are, arguably, either stronger or more fragile than his.
Life has taught him that this is not a possibility, but rather a proved-positive; a fact that he has left his mark on those who have been thrust before him and conversely those before whom he has been thrust have left their mark on him.
The coal reaches finger heat as he sucks a last breath of smoke. He stubs the filter into the jam-jar and pictures his life as a thread of smoke dispersing into the air; atoms in the immensity of everything.
He holds no real bitterness for their shallowness… well, perhaps a sliver of bitterness left on his tongue-tip, left by their duplicity, unconscious or otherwise.
In his more forgiving moments, he imagines that they were as clueless as he, just taking things as they came before them. And then, in darker moments he reasons no: in order to actively manipulate, one is required to practise a modicum of craft. And he asks himself, ‘how does one come to that place so young - that conscious weighing of odds that requires one to get one over on those around you, to have influence; to be the guru – and to label it friendship?’
He sucks another smoke-lung; blows a cloud of doubt across the view and forces his lips into a smile; a skill he has recently learned; a skill that he is happy to have acquired; for to smile is to make a statement, to cast oneself upon those around you. And, he realises, those who have no choice but to wear their heart upon their sleeve must eventually learn that both the heart and sleeve are assets to be held close and cherished; to be held as symbols of honesty. He wonders if he should give the benefit of doubt to the possibility that that heart-on-sleeve honesty cannot always be agreeable to those whose hearts and sleeves are, arguably, either stronger or more fragile than his.
Life has taught him that this is not a possibility, but rather a proved-positive; a fact that he has left his mark on those who have been thrust before him and conversely those before whom he has been thrust have left their mark on him.
The coal reaches finger heat as he sucks a last breath of smoke. He stubs the filter into the jam-jar and pictures his life as a thread of smoke dispersing into the air; atoms in the immensity of everything.
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