You old spirit

Why do I allow you to darken my doorstep; you, you old spirit.

 

I felt you around the corner and I saw you walk up the block, and I still let you in. I knew that letting you in you would only tear my house asunder leaving me to pick up the pieces. I’d make everything all nice and pretty only for you to destroy it again.

 

Why do I allow you to speak to me; you, you old spirit.

 

Without saying a word you lied to me. When you did speak you sanctified your bible of deception with even more lies. All of it, every syllable of every word of every sentence you’ve spoken before. All of it, time and time again your lies flowed from that abyss to the point where I could manuscript them without correction, yet I still gave you my ear. I still hang on to every lie as if not to drown knowing fully; without a shadow of question that not only do the lies let me drown but they are the cause. I still swim tirelessly with my ears heavy.

 

Why do I allow you to look at me; you, you old spirit.

 

Your icy gaze finds its way into my heart, my soul, my entire being. I feel your gawk mostly from your sisters’ younger disciples that can not tell the difference between the evil twins. There are times when it comes from the minds that your father whose only name we can pronounce as “time” has twisted into something sick and demented; something found in the bile of maggots and in the fluids of diseased rotting flesh. Then there are times when your gaze comes from those that know the difference between the two yet your sister has trained them well in her ways. They seem and maybe think they are of pure intentions, as pure and as precious as a rose in a garden of weeds. You have already doomed them as you have me. I know I should not turn to look upon you but I do, and it is still you. I see all of the things that you hold in your eyes even though I know they are all of the same things that were there before. The same things that were there when our eyes were first introduced.

 

Why do I allow you, you old spirit.

 

Why do I allow you to come near me? Why do I allow you to speak to me? Why do I allow you to look upon me? Why allow you, you old spirit?

 

I guess because you are the only one that has remained true. You have always been concrete in your lies, hurt, and pain. You have always been there when I did not need you and when I was at points where I would not open the door, even for you. When I would not listen to your lies; when I would not look upon your beautifully twisted face and stare deeply into those hollows you have as substitute for eyes, looking for a soul losing my own in the course. You took the extra time and effort to wait at the door so when I did let you in on the fiction that you would not wreck and ravage my house like you did the last time. When I would not listen to your deception you sung so wonderfully, you belted so beautifully anyone would have swore that you cold talk an angle down from heaven. No one would ever guess the angel would suffer a faith worse than Hitler in hell.

 

When I would not look you took a form so pleasing, so beautiful not even the first day would dare to compare. I knew beneath it all you were uglier than all foulness, all wrong.

 

I guess you, you old spirit, you being my only true enemy you have treated me better than any friend. You being the only thing that I ever truly desired I received only your truest detest.

 

You, you old spirit.

 

You love me enough to hate me. I allow you because I’d rather you hate me than nothing at all because that’s what we’re supposed to. I can find happiness in the pat on the back. That is before you stab me.

 

Why do I love you, you old spirit of love when you never have loved me?

 

©Christopher F. Brown 2009