I have walked inside the mind of a killer. Known him intimately. I have tasted the marrow of his bones. I am the one who knows himself. The strength of my hands, the cords of my arms, the unsubtlety of my guarded eyes. I have wrapped my hands around the necks of the willing to sate the hunger and the fear. As the killer I understand each heartbeat’s value. That every moment is more precious than the last. I am touching the air with my lips. The air is touching your body with its invisible hands. My mind prowls restlessly looking for you. To hunt is to exist.
There is a cold, starry night. We are in a field, my ancestors and I. Looking up and outwards at the stars. Wondering. Always wondering. What secrets do they hold? I have walked inside the mind of an explorer. What is down there? What is over there? What is beyond the places I can see? I can feel the road calling to me. Always. Begging for new traveling companions. Treasuring old ones. Needing the gnawing knowing to expand. My ancestors gave me the gift of cold, starry nights. We share them evermore. Their bones under me compel an outward spiral’s birth. I must lift the veil and go into the darkness afraid and resolute. To explore is to exist.
They censure and censor. The heretic I have been and will always be. The audacity of refusing to bow to kings and priests is in my DNA. A gift from the universe made by gods who do not speak only to the powerful. My gods speak through the starving man, the desperate mother and her sickly child, the peaceful warrior who only wields the blade reluctantly. I have shared many a meal with the downtrodden, the unwelcome, the pariahs and the mad ones. They are mine and I am theirs. Come, let us build a home together and plot against the kings and priests. For they are fat and comfortable as we will never be. I have been the penniless hungry heretic with worn out shoes.
I have known the builders. Something occurred to me once as I watched them building a structure that leapt towards the sky defiantly. About borders and boundaries and invisible lines we draw around ourselves. I want to shatter all of it. I am implacable. Lay down your unnecessary friction and I will bring the grease pot. Draw the static lines to cage me and I will plot an escape. To build is to take a dream and give it life. Your rules are for you. They are not mine. My hammer’s drumbeat rhythm is not one to follow that of the taskmaster’s whip. Allegiance to nations is a sin. I swear my fealty to ideals, not men and their flags. For those are fickle and ever changing. I know how to build and I know how to destroy. I know how to reach for the sky. When they tell me where my feet cannot go I do not listen. When they tell me where my hands cannot reach I spit at them and reach anyway.
I will taste your ideas. Each in turn. I will know you. In the deepest places where you do not know yourself. And when I am ready, when there is nothing left to taste, to explore, to learn, I will ask you to throw me into the sun. I know that it is my destiny to burn. I do not know which sun will take me in when that time finally comes.
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