In other words, this is the best of times.

Old souls recognize the stench of desperation. I don't know if there is any measure of pride that can be found in being in this {state of limbo/purgatory/life on earth} place for far too long. Not in man-years, not even in light-years, but in eternal seconds, in suspended animation, in the vacuum of prolonged entropy.

Sitting here proves therapeutic, only if you're being kind. From here the valleys and liquid channels blur into one another, meaning nothing, really, but whatever they ought to represent. I've met one too many characters, loved one too many impossibilities, drank one too many substances.

This name you've given me hangs upon my consciousness like a curse (or a hearse, or a verse). I'm a soul too old to recognize joy when it happens. I'm a soul too old to take anything seriously. I'm too old for causes, too old for flings, too old for a goddamn fucking commitment with someone who will eventually, inevitably, die.

It could really be the other way. I feel nothing now, though. The pain, the backdrop to everything, feels more physical than I'd allow. Careful, when it's physical, it's no longer in your head. But inside of me, there is this, the oldness of being old, the meaninglessness of everything.

These are the same things. The long stretch of history fools us into thinking otherwise, but really, these are the same things. This brings me no satisfaction. Perhaps in death, we'd find the contrast we've been looking for. If not this, then what? What else is there? Human lives are too golden to waste. And yet here am I. Here we are. We've been walking down the same path for centuries.

(Note on August 12, 2012: This was originally posted on my Tumblr.  I'm doing some online housekeeping and I figured I'd leave my Tumblr out of the drama and corral introspective shit here. I left my blog last August of 2009 but I've reemerged somewhere between that and this.)