Reading From Tolstoy

Not a god,
not a man...
not even
an over-glorified,
over-indulging,
over-zealous,
yet under-achieving
ape —
magnanimously superior
and self-aggrandizing,
picking nits
from his fur
as he squats in
the squishy squalor
of his existence...
(— though, probably,
the last rings most true...)

“She loves me —
she loves me not...
she loves me —”
“Are you still living?!”
“No — I died long ago...
but you already knew,
didn’t you...
you better than anyone...”

The penultimately procrastinated,
born of Epimethial unintent...
malingering, stagnating —
‘til Destiny arrives,
sweeping into my life
like a warm, spring breeze,
and verily blowing me away!...
She takes me bodily
into her naked embrace —
then rejects me —
shuns me!
pariah!! —
leaving us with pasts
each had found unfulfilling...
eternity remaining unoffered...

Later, she reads to me:
‘Then do this for me —
never utter
such words again,
and let us
be good friends...’
‘Friends we
shall never be.
You know that
yourself...’

Does it even really change anything?
I mean… I suppose I’ve always known
exactly who and what I am...
— yet I was completely unprepared
as undeniable reality
smacked me in the face with it...

Grains or grasses
or caustic chemicals —
the elixir of beloved,
soul-sustaining,
fermented potato nectar!...
drugs and booze and wh —
...ritual bleedings...
yet nothing can erase
the misdeeds and misdirections,
the myriad of misgivings
that have led to ruin...
without her,
nothing can make of me
more than I am,
when it was she
— the predilection of
all my proclivities —
who ever inspired me
unto all I might be....

She reads:
‘I am lost, lost!
Worse than lost!...
I’m like an
over-strained
violin string
that must snap...’

— All I ever wanted
was to be real...
I know now
such can never be.