If you could read my mind, love
What a tale my thoughts could tell
Just like an old time movie
About a ghost from a wishin' well
In a castle dark or a fortress strong
With chains upon my feet

You know that ghost is me
And I will never be set free
As long as I'm a ghost, you can see

If I could read your mind, love
What a tale your thoughts could tell
Just like a paperback novel
The kind the drugstore sells
When you reach the part where the heartaches
Come the hero would be me

Heroes often fail
and you won't read that book again
Because the endings just too hard to take

I'd walk away like a movie star
Who gets burned in a three way script
Enter number two, a movie queen
To play the scene of bringing
All the good things out in me
But for now, love let's be real

I never thought I could act this way
And I've got to say that I just don't get it
I don't know where we went wrong
But the feelings gone and I just can't get it back

If you read between the lines
You'll know that I'm just trying to understand
The feeling that you left

I never thought I could feel this way
And I've got to say that I just don't get it
I don't know where we went wrong
But the feelings gone and I just can't get it back

As poignant as anything i've ever bore witness to.

Exile.

And setting them free.

I've heard this song a thousand times, but until tonight- i'd never really heard it.

ain't that the way it goes...

The Afterdeath part I

Her voice quavered... "Hell is not the place for a soul such as he-". Eyes widened. A chuckle escaped my lips, even as I concealed myself from sight. Opinions vary, I thought to myself. An incredulous Bubba seemed to take a minute to compose himself before he answered her, shocked momentarily that I evoked this reaction from anyone, much less - Her.

He paused briefly, to consider the proper response, then smiled despite himself and replied: "Hell- to some- is a curse, a prison, a punishment... For men like him- and me, for that matter- we consider that final destination simply as a matter of respect." She drank in his words, but her attentiveness was lost on him, his eyes had glazed into the distance of the flames, as he perhaps beheld his eternal reward in his mind's eye.

I shared the feeling.
No one else gathered around the fire spoke.  Greg grunted as if affirmation to the absurdity of it all. She bit her lip tightly as her image of me, expanded, contorted, into something different in the silence of those surrounding her, those who she expected to hold me in the greatest regard of all.

I shifted backwards, in the darkness, and slid away in the shadows of the firelight. There was work to be done. And never a better time than while I was dead.

Sad but True

"...and he that increaseth knowledge, increaseth sadness" Ecclesiastes

This, is indeed, true.

True knowledge brings weight to a man's soul. But it also brings depth. And it increases vision and the breadth of a man's being.

Bring the knowledge- and in the realization of such wisdom, let me understand how much smaller I may become, in the greater scheme of things. And in doing so, I will become all the greater for this comprehension.

Amen.