Post Somewhere Between The Eighth And Ninth: Void

   I'd like to go ahead and give my sincere appy-polly-loggies in advance sweet readers as my mind seems to be slightly askew this lovely night, so if you notice an increased inclination toward verbal meandering, well, don't be too terribly surprised. It's nothing to fret or fuss over, I've never been right in the head - tonight simply happens to be the epitome of wrong-headedness on my part, what between the spinning fluttering dimness of the room; the worried stress-filled bite-marks that grace my fingers like rings of rubies; the way overheard sentences seem to end themselves before beginning , swallowing up whole clauses or suddenly changing meaning and measure completely... The world giddily jiggles by before my eyes, too fast to catch hold of, but so painfully boringly slow! And in my head the cacophony swells and swells in some grandiose maddening opus of discordant voices all screeching to be heard over one another in this quiet little room. Past regrets roar belicosely at idealistic daydreams, while manic and ardent inspirations leap and bound about, blind to all else, rolling forth like some ecstatic juggernaut crushing reason and sense beneath its holy wheels. Such a scene is set in my mind as it tries to grasp the real world unfolding around it.

   All of the above said, I find the overall theme of the mercurial mental symphony tonight is of the void, that slippery formless thoughtless bleak between thoughts, between even dreams. I find myself constantly rolling towards its brink, its gaping maw of nothingness. I can think of no more terrifying hell, no more maddening torment, and so I allow the chaotic inner chorus to continue in the hope that it will keep me wary, or at least afloat above that murksome deadly calm. I feel like Odysseus, bound to the mast to keep me from ecstatic surrender to that Siren of pure nothingness. As much as I fear it, I must also admit a deep fascination with it. To think of what may lay there, unknowable to the mind, or at least to that of humans; to someday past life be free to plumb its veiled depths, to hear the whispers that lie now silent; to know thought beyond thought, and dream what even in dreams we dare not dwell on. Gods but to know! Even now I feel its bleak pull at the bottom of my mind, that tugging at base curiosity that drives our species to create and destroy. I feel a gravity to that nothing, and I know one day I'll fall too close to that night, and never wake. One day I'll sink past that hallowed liminality, into the waiting arms of oblivion. Yet I still feel a thrill, a shiver of terrified ecstasy as I brush against it accidentally, leafing from thought to thought; like a paper cut earned from carelessly turning a page. Yes, even now I hear you - lightless you beckon, voiceless you call, mindless you reach to my deepest self. I feel your fingers brush the back of my eyes, hear your whispers in the breath of corpses in my dreams - corpses with my names. I know, sweet waters of Lethe, that godless amnesty you mete out to all man. I know, and I brush my fingers across your glassy surface as I dive nearer every night. I know one day I'll dive too low, and you'll swallow me up into obscurity.

   Void, if you hear, I know all this and less. When you do take me into your stillness, I will feel no more, perhaps even think no more. Mine will be one more whisper on the breath of corpses, one more body in the cold earth, or ashes upon the wind. Perhaps this is what it is to be at peace, though I never thought to feel a euphoric terror at such prospects. Nothing - enemy to man and his creation, no? Good void, wicked void, soulless sucking emptiness, why must you constantly remind me of your presence? Why must you dance and slide your way about my thoughts, like oil upon water? Why must you tickle the backs of my eyes and pull at their lids; why must you cradle my dreams in your unliving embrace? Is this the only way you can be, the only way you can know yourself - by tormenting and teasing the fragile minds of my kind? Is it a mindless searching of our souls, or is there some design to your probing - an answer you are looking for? If so, I pray to never know the question. Such thoughts weren't meant for minds like mine.

   I fear I've dwelt on these musings too long already. The choir of shallower thoughts - my mental armor - seems to grow quieter by the minute. Should their voices fade completely, I shudder to to think of what consequences there could be, especially with such grim notes already creeping their ways into their songs. Perhaps they feel what I'm about, perhaps they've their own wishes concerning that void. I think I've said enough. It does not do to dwell too long on that abyssal blank.