I find myself questioning all the things that have led me to this point in time and space

what if? why now? where else?

Is there no place for me, no real life that could come burbling up from the depths no real work that I could enjoy, that I could endure, that would pay me well for being who I am?

Money. Hahahah. The very idea of money sets me to laughing when have I had money? the only time I've ever considered myself well~off in terms of money, the only time when I had enough money that I didn't care what I did with it, was when I was trapped in a job I couldn't see beyond, a job that absorbed me, that smothered my very personality. Certainly, I was making money, I was working, I even wore a tie. I was respectable, I was courteous, and above all, I was professional. Yet I wasn't myself. I couldn't write, I was terminally unhappy, and I hated people around me.

There were times when the customers would raise deep~seated urges to rip them apart, to force their faces into the muck, to scream at them until my voice cracked I was so calm on the outside that people would sometimes comment on my impassive nature... they would acknowledge my seeming complacency, my passion for business, as if that was me, that was all I was, just another store clerk.

It became such an issue in my mind that I couldn't face my surroundings any longer. I became bitter, sick to death of the fact that I couldn't be more than the label I was assigned. My friends knew full well I wasn't happy, they could see me wilting into a normal person and, as if that wasn't enough, they cheered me onward. Look at Jeff! Look how successful he is, how he's finally holding down a job, how he's trying to make a go at it. It, of course, was life, or maybe work... perhaps 'it' was money, or the corporate ladder.

Inside, I knew that 'it' was the last thing I wanted. I don't want to be a cog in some wheel, a rat race runner who endlessly trods a treadmill and runs until his feet are a mashed bloody pulp, I don't want to be successful in a world where success means 'the american way' where we work until we get some vacation time, work until we get some benefits, work until we get our severance pay. That life leads only to death.

I want to live as though every day is my best chance at immortality, immortal not through scientific advancement, not through religious invokation, but through literature, immortal through words, through inspiration of others.

I want to be an americanized literary great, a master of words, a writer who's books are forced upon the young while they sit, alone amidst each other, in classrooms where the borders of the walls are defined by chalkboards, in theaters where professors stand behind wooden podiums spouting forth on the merits of authors, and ranked in the pages of anal-retentive librarians lists of books they have read.

I want to unveil the mind of myself and those I encounter within the pages of dense, massive tomes, where every rampant thought I have is given forth in precise, descriptive paragrpahs, where the very essence of my experience is expounded upon, where I may split infinitives without fear of grammatical retribution, falling back upon my poetic license as a kind of get-out-of-jail free card, where I can be encapsulated within a few hundred thousand words of importance as a kind of psychological map, a super-spiritual ghost-trap, that would hold my essence until every bit of my wisdom and foolishness, every bit of my knowledge and ignorance, can be preserved for those who are not yet born.

But instead, I am faced with this dark despair of the temp service, with its recovering junkies, its quivering alcoholics, with its supervisors who enquire as to whether or not you can count to ten, who assume right away that you might be a thief, that they had best keep an eye on you lest you sneak off to smoke crack behind the building.

Is it any wonder that despair floods my own soul as I face this brick structure?

I demand a world where I am able to write in peace, where there will always be a fresh notebook, ready to recieve my words, where I can enjoy a nice cup of coffee, a decent meat-free meal, where I can refill my research addiction when my need becomes imperative, where I can be loved for who I am and what I will create, loved for my failures, loved for my scars, loved for my rage, loved for who I am, rather than how much money I can, or cannot, make.

Lest I become a rampaging egoist, I must resolve the following issues...

I am not writing to hear myself think, I am not writing to see my name in lights, I am not writing in order to become famous... Not that I don't want these things, mind you. I accept life as it is, I walllow in the day-to-day occurence, I thrive on the chance encounter... yet, the truest reason for my writing is that I can do no other thing as well, I cannot visualize myself as a lion-tamer, or a flight-safety inspector, a policeman... there is no place for me in the world as a fireman, an investment agent, a door-to-door salesman. All I can be, in fact, all I know, is writing.

Writing what? What is it I write? Why, poetry I suppose... I have written my fair share of poetry, have plotted poetry on graph paper, have written epics on napkins, on clothing, on the scraps of flags and boxes, I have graphittied poetry on cement walls and internet web-sites, but it is not poetry which I wish to write.

I have been so hateful towards poetry at times that I am amazed I still have the ability to write it... I have screamed my poetry into that void that resides both within and outside the soul, I have poured poetry out in torrents, one after another, waves upon waves of noise and image, and still I am disgusted with my own creations.

Rather, I want to write books, novels, stories, plays, movie scripts, journal entries, newspaper columns, advertisment quips... I want to speak to the world from the safety of my pen, I want to rewrite the great books of mankind with new names and call it my own work, as long as I am writing, and as long as my writing continues to maintain my income.

I am a literary whore, I would allow myself to be swayed by any author, so long as it inspired me towards my goals... Communist? Anarchist? Republican? Cristian Coalition, Wiccan Fundamentalist, Gay Activist, NRA Member, Darwinist, socialist, or athiest? No matter... does it inspire? More importantly, does it inspire me to write?

To be sure, this office setting of depravity, this hollow endoresment of neo-slavery, does little to inspire me.

It makes me sick, it throws me to my own internal wolves, it rips all sense of dignity away and leaves only the bleeding self-pity exposed.