bye bye blackbird

Winter is here but the leaves still lie in clumps in front of my house like the death throes of autumn. I have lost so much these past few months but it has only served to bring clarity to my eyes and perhaps a slight tremble to my fingers. Everything I know has been marked by dread and the uncertain joy of a degenerate gambler throwing everything he has into the pot. I have thus far succeeded in keeping my head above water, as they say. What immunity I have found is not a result of virtue, but rather a keen sense of disinterest. All the rats left this ship a long time ago. These are the birth pains of a brand new day. We are but dust, and once you have died it will matter little whether or not you made your mark on the world or not. If we are going to live, let’s live for our neighbors and for beauty, for creation, for art, for anything that is not destructive. Life fully lived is a balance struck between intolerable beauty and immense pain. It is flowers on the one side and ashes on the other, and it all ends in tears.