Suffering and the opiate of you

Check your backpack

at the door of perception.

Leave your hiking boots

in plain mind sight,

resting from themselves.

Walk the walk

that has no past

stepping forward.

You are not becoming

a guide

for a sold-out self-tour.

This is not the land

of pity and disappointment.

There will be no postcards

to dash off.

This land does not feature

sorrow’s valley.

It does not explore

the joy of lofty peaks.

Invite yourself

into the map room

of think.

You know the editors,

the scouts, the reports,

and the shtick.

They gab.

They all have a beat,

as you.

But whom do they work for?

(This is as bleak as OZ!)

Find the projection room

and the wee pity-me in charge.

“Gees, who hired them as me?”

Is this your response?

Who is on that cell phone

in a sober serious manner?

Tap that call.

And who would you be

talking with?

Whoever that is

must be really pissed,

yakking a mile a minute.

Shit, it’s the other you.

The emotional persuasion

of all time,

well, not really,

but all of your time for sure!

You were born Siamese sort of,

the other being, still you.

The surgery was claimed successful.

That part of you, supposedly died

during the separation operation.

Ah, but we come to know better.

They miraculously survived

under cloak and whisper

as the grand dame

of emotional self-splendor.

Not every one

has one of these phantoms

built in.

Obviously,

you didn’t get the manual

or notice all the features

that came with the other you.

Remember, your life

became really their life,

in absentia.

They lived through you,

kind of as you

but not for you,

well for you,

for them, really.

The she or he of you,

(not sure yet?)

has mega watt perception

and fantasy override

and options of projection

and soft sell,

and whispers as truth

and indulgence,

kind of as

the fantasy-answer to desire.

(Oh and opiate production

maybe theirs also!)

But, of course,

you have come to know

all of this over the years.

They made a great working couple

inside you as you.

Hey, we all got closet!

So here we are,

post OZ, more you,

than ever before.

But atrophy is everywhere

as anger a blazon.

They are, of course

much older as life goes

and sort of a bother

with a mouth access

that pitches bleak concrete

your mindful way.

You, as the operative,

are a big disappointment.

You, as the stalwart,

deed doer,

front man,

have falling on hard times

as their functionary.

They want up and right now

no excuses, just deliver,

times are awaiting, otherwise.

Wow, you must think-feel like

the phone piece in their hand

yelling at we-pity me

in the projection room

that was supposedly you!

Maybe a cocoon of you

but right now,

you are becoming

un-mummy-fied

right before your eyes,

well, right before your eyes

that have no lids

and right beyond the obvious

those see-says

behind your apparent circumstance.

Which you is really you?

You ask?

You, the compassion of examiners,

coming forth out of the shadows

or you, betwixt and bewildered

but alone

well, maybe neither

in the metamorphosis

beyond now?

But, as self-stories go,

yours is transgressing into;

A. mapping the baron land

of aloneness.

B. it’s all mine

as the prison of me.

C. you have got to be

kidding me, they’re for real?

D. I feel a song coming on.

E. I am the musical

behind all the me-players.

F. Okay . . .

all of the above !

As you say,

you have choices . . .

and do.

So where are you going

with this suffering?

(Are there breakdowns,

breakthroughs,

bygones,

and bad times?)

Just asking! . . . . .

Remember,

it’s like am radio

that you can’t turn off.

It’s all you,

for all of them,

all the time!

For what you have come

to know and to be,

what better opiate are you

for them,

then that?