Bishop's Karma

Ash makes the water muddy in this crescent of a town,
The blood of memory pooling around the edges and the rubble.
It's the memory that feeds the dilemma as the ghosts of notes float around while
The water takes over like you wouldn't believe--
And this is a dry heat, too, for here, the air thick as molasses, lungs unable to breathe.
On the rooftops there's writing in tape calling out for Jesus, professing faith;
It's something of which I can't conceive--
Nature's the God of this town, choking and breeding.
I say the Holy Spirits are all woven together and they are they and you--and I, a consecrated meeting.
We're all drowned out and the crescent crumbles under the burden of times yet unperceived.
Here, the marshes dream achingly of regeneration,
They're in synch with the people, praying for Amazing Grace—

A futile inclination because
The prayer's shut out—

I hear them screaming, instead,
"I seen the Devil come down like he own the place."

New Orleans is a place of contradiction. It is a place of despair in the most raw of forms alongside hope. Though the hope is fragile, it pervades every inch of air in every person left out of fortune. They seek their fortune in the form of Chance, a simple Chance, and that stirs in me more hope upon looking and more grief, because the need for that simple Chance persists.

I don't want this to be a sob tale, because the storm sobbed enough on that city and caused more sobbing afterward. Besides, this is a tale for myself, and it's for figuring out what it is I'm feeling. The land is shrinking rapidly but no one seems to care, at least no one who has the power to act on fixing the problem. Two-thirds of the people are ghosts in the form of memory, alive but unable to come back because the color of their skin and the number behind the dollar sign belonging to their name isn't big enough for the ones who claim authority. I wonder if what I feel is sadness or pity or happiness that (though it be few and far between) at least a handful put in their Time instead of writing off "help" in the signing of a check that makes it into some bureaucrat's pocket instead of the people's. I wonder if the feeling is frustration at the fact that 90% of those people giving Time really understand the gravity of the situation at all.

The feeling is confusion, at least at the moment. I don't know what to make of it, or of myself. It brings me back to my childhood and the things I hate--segregation, the War, the allowance of prejudice, the fact it exists and not exists, but is innate within the consciousness of every single one of them. I hate the fact that they force me to notice, too. I hate the fact that it's a factor because all I ever saw was the human race until my innocence got me in trouble and I had to learn that the shade of brown makes all the difference in this society of ours, that the belief system you're born into is a right of passage for other people's hate.

I remember children throwing stones in a moment when they forgot their separate races and united in their senseless hatred of mine. I remember running away from them but the stones had already hit me and in many ways I'm still bleeding just as this Crescent City's still drowning.
I've seen war zones before. The media does not desensitize me to them. Reality makes me more apalled than ever before each time I face it again. Unfortunately, I face it everyday, whether it be my physical surroundings or an image in my head from a memory. Then I understand why fantasy has always been so seductive.

Don't you?

"I was working on a--I was working on a moment. Can't you see that moment?"
"I'm seeing a minute if that counts."
"No. Just a moment. Just a moment."
"What do you want?"
"More of them. I'm telling you, I want more of them."

I love the way life plays out. I prayed for a Friend. I wished for a Friend. And I got it. I got it this time. And I got two. One stronger in the first place, but the other isn't too far behind.

I also love the way I always stressed the fact that the love I speak of is never romantic. Up until now, I never believed that anyone else could really feel like that. But it's true. If someone can care about me this much and love me this much without being in love, that's way fucking wicked amazing. So much I can't really describe it in words. Because I know that it's the closest thing I'll have to forever.

We don't speak of forever because that's illogical. Nothing lasts forever for one reason or another. People die and illusion with it or people change and the feeling fades. This won't fade, I don't think. Maybe it'll have its ups and downs and I'll cry like it's fading but I won't really think so underneath.

This has been a good trial. But it proved something to me that I would never give up for anything. Not for anything. I would die to save it and you know that I wouldn't die for anything. Because I love living and if you can find something to live for instead of dying for, then you've really got a handle on it all. But I live for this and I'll take it with me to heaven or hell or oblivion...wherever it is we all end up.

The great storm is over. At least for now. (I don't think I want the big storm to be over yet. Not yet. It's too good for that.)

Perhaps things won't be so bad. I can't say I'm not disappointed, but I can say that I believe I can trust them to not abandon me. I guess that's all I really care about. I don't want them to leave me. I think, maybe, sincerely, that they won't.

Today it's been a year since I last saw Anthony. I guess it's a good date for an anniversary because it'll also be the day I decided I'm done with all of their bullshit.

I thought about it. I really did. And I thought about it again and thought I could accept it and be happy and be happy for them. But I can't. I can't be happy. Sure, I'll be happy for them. But I can't be happy myself. Because he lied.

Because he led me on.
Because he lied just like they did.
So now I'm done with it. Never, never, never again.
Never again.
See me build my walls?
See me getting harder?
It's easy.
It's easy.
It's easy.
Build a wall around my heart and the pain can't get through. It's easy. Just just like this.

This is the part where I disappear. Because a year-and-a-half is up. Because history repeats itself. Because I can never keep anything I love.

Despite what they say, I know how it goes. I know this game. I know this review.

The bottom line is, I'm alone again. Like I'll always be. Like I've always been.

But it doesn't matter. Concentrate on finals and papers, I suppose. And then...something else mundane.

"What do you want?" asks the traveller.
And the sibyl replied: "I want to die."