Message to the Young (II)

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Message to the Young (II)

Old Man Duck by Dr Anthea

All your vain wallowing in pride about your appearance – where will that be, when the hair on your head turns grey or falls out and what's up your nose, in your ears and on your eyebrows, turns into a dense thicket? What will you do, when your body turns into a bag of fat or just skin, stretched over bone?

All those smooth-skinned, lithe young bodies, having no blemishes except for temporary acne – I envy you! My revenge is knowing that one day you'll end up just like me – old and falling to bits at the seams. All the 'pleasures' you enjoy now, one day will be gone. Sugar will set your teeth on edge, bread will give you heartburn, fat will make you want to throw up. All of life's victories you can say goodbye to because they will simply make you too ill, to enjoy them anymore – the sex, the drink, the cigarettes. All because you've become too sensitive to sensations, to put up with them anymore (Too bright, too noisy, too smelly, too strong tasting). The first half of your life, you're indefatigable – the second, crushed to death by your experiences. The good memories disappear and the bad ones resurface. Do I have a poor memory in reality? No, I just don't want to remember the past anymore or experience the present and as for the future... I've lost all my appetite for life and just want to die. I've watched family and friends go before me and now I'm dead inside too, just waiting for my body to catch up and release me from this living hell of daily life.

I remember how it used to be with my wife and me. We stood together against the gathering storm but now we've fallen apart. We can barely talk to each other. We go through the sham of a happy marriage, like nearly everyone else we know because that is what is expected of you. I remember when we first met and fell in love. We were two strangers, who opened up and trusted each other. The barriers between us dissolved and like blocks of ice, melting into running water, we flowed into one another. Finally finding a mirror of ourselves, we blossomed into one being and abandoned the lies and subterfuge of the world around us. Now the agreed upon barriers have been reforged. We do not let passion push us beyond this. We never meet in no-man's land anymore. Our 'relationship' is constant and consciously maintained because it can never be anything but distant from now on. Love is dead. Mutual exploration is dead. We are dead.

We no longer fight or struggle for understanding but have drifted emotionlessly away from each other. We are polite across the cold spaces between us, going through the senseless formalities but that is all. To outsiders living their own cold, dead lives, we are 'still' in love, but robots know the truth, minds know the truth – hearts though won't accept it and die for their treason to hard facts.

Yes, you have all this emotional hell to look forward to, and I wouldn't wish it on anybody, not even you – the death of love, the death of friendship, in a crumbling world where we throw ourselves into tasks, to avoid facing this loneliness, this emptiness, we cal our 'lives.' We are battlefield casualties of a war we slid into – one we never consciously chose. Wrecks of yesterday – mind staring at mind, broken heart at broken heart, unwilling to face the pain inside. We pretend that all is 'normal' and act as though it were, in the vain hope it will be again, but knowing different in reality.

Shut me in my box

Keep me safe and warm.

Shut me in my box

Save me from the storm.
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