Has it been 4 years already

Sometimes the weight is too heavy a burden but it just keeps coming, flowing, pouring into me a blue, blue torrent. I shake my head, fall to cold earth, covered from head to numb toes in the choking resentment of inequality, unfairness. I want to be free to be loved cheaply, I want to buy my kingdom of tarnished dreams and duct tape the entire mess beneath. To boast and be applauded by princes of mockery and ignorance. I want to drink of that shallow well of flash fame and fortune and desperately wallow in whatever mud is flung my way before it has become dry and cracked.

Integrity and honor are shadows that leave a bitter taste in my mouth and I crush that memory with practiced bravado. The cheap applause only spurs me forward. If you can't beat them, join them.

Yet rare moments of silence when the world has screamed itself hoarse carries with it memories like pinpricks, nagging and irritating. The temptation is never strong, never overpowering, but always a clean, pure constant throb. Expression is a necessity, but art is a choice. Some of us are lucky and fall into it faster than others do. I've forgotten how to see it, and in so doing let you down. We are the weight upon each other's shoulders, let us carry one another up. It is not inequality, it is not a burden, it is a responsibility we hold, a privilege we undertake to have such raw trust placed in our hands. That understanding carries with it a freedom as well, not so lightly touched, but also not so lightly lost.

Even if it's too late, there is honor in our passion.