I have been descending into my subterranean temple for seven years now. I did not know this temple even existed until I was shown the secret trap door I had been walking over my entire life.
You better believe I cried like a baby. I tried to sprint out of my apartment naked and screaming for help in the middle of the night, but that which showed me the trap door talked me out of it.
Somehow.
I spent two years simply peering underground, amazed.
Terrified.
I descended slowly and quickly. I didn't want to, and wanted so badly to get on with it. I began opening doors.
I found the animal abuser. I met the racist. I had lunch with the misogynist, and dinner with the rapist. I met the anti-Semite. I spent the day with the liar.
I opened a door and met the self mutilator. I chatted up the drug addict. I found the room with a hundred men jacking off, and another with a 12-year-old girl huddled in the corner. I met the murderer. I had coffee with the terrorist.
I found the taker disguised as the giver, the psychological abuser, the physical abuser.
In the broom closet I found the broken boy.
And then one door remained, the thickest door of all, on the deepest level of my temple.
Every door was preparation for this last one. I have known it, but this knowledge cannot help me, for I have stood outside this last door for so long, shivering, pissing in my pants, wanting so very desperately to wake up.
And yet I know I will truly wake up only when I open this last door and meet the occupant.
And release him.
I would rather visit any combination of criminals, victims and deviants in this place than listen to him breathing on the other side in perfect synchronicity with me.
It is ironic that the drug addict has the run of the temple, but the occupant of this last room cannot leave unless I open the door from the outside.
Irony will not save me. Neither will this pool of piss on the floor or the shit balls falling down my pant leg, for I cannot stand in this position much longer. The flies are beginning to eat me alive.
It is time to let him out and clean up this mess I've made.
It is time to release the King.
27 comments:
if i feel compelled to explain a piece immediately after writing it, that usually means i failed in communicating its meaning. nevertheless, i think the scariest thing might be accepting all we are capable of becoming.
This is one powerful piece of writing. The protagonist has demons inside, vicious ones who don't let go. I wonder how addicts would respond to this piece. Superb.
Whoa! Very dark, yet I like to think there is hope and positivity in your ending because I see the King as light. What's uppermost in my mind is how and why so many of us became trampled and of course I blame the greedy and selfish that so many of us also allow to lead in this world.
dang! this was a tight write ed - meeting all these broken and scary people and in the end - ourselves - all the things we don't want to see and don't want to know and deny they exist...the truth in love may be a solution...the truth of what is already paid for..
su-sieee! mac and claudia, thanks. i think everyone has these demons inside. one cannot grow up in western culture without them. but that doesn't mean we act on them. yes, i have a rapist in me. no, i've never raped anyone.
when we deny the existence of these demons in us, or that we could ever possibly become them, it makes it a whole lot easier to make outcasts of those in society who do these crimes, seems to me.
Powerful piece.
Oh, Ed. WHERE have you been all my life LOL? I have been studying this very thing (amongst other concepts) and it was all at once liberating, terrifying and confronting to accept as I identified the energies behind each of those doors.
p.s. You're on twitter! I did not know that. Just followed you (I am shortn_tweet).
space lady and being me, thanks so much. i worried this piece might creep a reader out. see, i worried 'bout nothin', as usual.
I identify with this too well. Embracing your dark side is powerful shit. Love it.
-Cab
Ed,
We are the worst, unto ourselves. And I'm almost shivering here...thinking of a poem I just wrote, as yet unpublished, but which speaks to all we could be, both evil and good, and my admiration for those who fight against. I wondered, at the value of "try". Trying not to rape. Trying not to kill. There must be value in the effort NOT TO do the things we have within us...to keep them in small measure. It is brave to look at these things. Braver still...to open the door and argue them. You wield a big sword and will no doubt triumph. Why is it...I am so sure of you?
Deep. Kept me on the edge of my seat. 'Superb' indeed. :)
Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes, oh yes!
Ed, every word is authentic and real and true and teetering right on that fine line that undulates between light/dark, good/evil, win/lose, pleasure/pain, life/death.
Because of that, it is truly a declaration of love unto the Self in its myriad facets.
Achingly, penetratingly, hideously gorgeous, my Piscean brother.
Bravo...
ed...this is powerful stuff...i was wondering along the way wether you were meeting different aspects of yourself...i think perhaps we do have things in common on some level with each of them, but...
i'm really pleased with the pace. of course i like the art best of all! it's not mine. it's stock.
Wow! Deep, insightful, provocative, powerful, chilling, sobering, liberating....I'm impressed once again by your talent!!!! Bravo!
What we are really scared of (I think) is that we belong to those that make mischief but don't realise it. Or when reminded, we say "Why, we only want to make peace!".
Correction: belong with, not to (english is my 3rd language. after two dialects of Malay;).
Wow - powerful piece of writing about our dark sides...
Ed, well done! I recognized the horror and hoped it wasn't so, knowing it was. The pace was perfect.
An astonishing piece.
This piece is simply phenomenal. I have no other words for it. You are STILL making me cry, goddammit.
I told someone that 2011 was the year I no longer ran away from my power, was no longer terrified of it, spending so much energy trying to smother it under a blanket or lock it behind doors.
Your poem nailed that nicely. We have in all of us the capacity to be incredibly cruel, selfish, and wicked. But even more frightening is the potential we have to amazingly beautiful and powerful, to transcend our limitations and rise above the bullshit that we let weigh us down every day.
Nicely done, Ed.
It is frightening to acknowledge the trap doors that lead to our interior life, and even more so to encounter each deviant, evil potential of our own hearts.
But more frightening still is to stand at the door of our own potential knowing it could remain locked, and have the courage to open the door to our own destiny.
I hope you will continue this wonderful piece. We are waiting with you for your King to have his voice.
a great piece, ed! loved every word every sentence every hallway down which it led me every door opened - down to the very last word taking us to the King! very powerfully spoken!
Oh, wow. I loved this. Every word. I want to know what happens next. Will you let us know?
Wow. Just.... wow... (but, wow in a good way).
What you say as your first comment, is the truth.
It's like telling a joke, if you have to explain it, then it's now funny.
I know we all have this inside ourselves. And reading that it exists in others doesn't scare me away.
We are all like this. We can moved to be like this.
By who knows what, some are able to stop, some aren't.
Powerful, honest, transparent, vulnerable, and standing naked before everyone.
Powerful enough to stand there, say it, and take any hits that may come your way.
This was beyond truthful.
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