Faith and a Lemon Tree

What do you do when life gives you a lemon tree? Conventional SMS wisdom dictates you sit down and patiently make lemonade from each and every one of those friggin' lemons. Normal testosterone-fueled instincts demand that you uproot the damned thing with your bare hands, set the broken remains on fire and dance around the pyre like a drunk cave man. There is also that timid weepy voice in the back of your head that just wants to curl into the tightest ball possible and forget all about it. But I want to follow the bloke who is bestriding the road like a stuffed up rooster; head tilted back, chest puffed out and eyes looking haughtily at everyone and everything. I want that insouciance. I want that devil-may-care fuck-that-shit outlook to life. I want to leave baggage behind whenever and wherever I choose. I want to look back and laugh. I want to look forward and laugh. And I definitely want to get out of this poetry phase, not that I am bad at it or anything. Too many rhyme schemes can't be good for your health.

What do you do when you lose faith though? Sheer cussedness is not going to get that back. Does it even come back in the first place, or am I supposed to learn to live with its shattered remnants? It's an excision this, leaving no memory whatsoever of what it used to be like before. Faith is a precious commodity I never had too much supply of anyway. Faith in self yes, but others definitely not. Whatever little I had left is gone now, swept away in a flash through that gaping chink in my armor that I never repaired. I don't know why I never fixed it. Maybe I was lazy, or scared, or just too irrational. Maybe I secretly liked the pain because it showed I could actually feel. Maybe it was some cruel self-inflicted experiment that I undertook just for kicks. Research for future writings, matter for future conversations, sympathy points for future dalliances; who knows.

Finally, what do you do in those weak moments in the dead of the night, when all logic and rationalizations dissolve in a haze of shades and shadows and nightmares that keep pulling you back towards that morass? Where does all that daredevilry go in these moments of need? The mind is a fickle mistress, keeps wandering down by-lanes you never ever want to go again. Reining that in is the hardest part. I tried confronting these moments head-on. I tried to stop them from happening also. Nothing works. I have to live with these nightmares for a while I guess; hopefully not an eternity.

I wish there was some way I could cauterize this wound, wrap it up in a nice little gauze and move on. But things never come that easy for me. It's going to fester some more yet, pain like nothing on earth, move me to hysterical laughter and bitter tears and hacking coughs and breathlessness and migraines and god knows what else. I smell of smoke 'cause I have been through fire. Wish it'd burn out already.