The Condescending Skies of June

I have become a prisoner of my own fractured mind.

A paranoid weirdo behind the horizontal bars of window shades

Flinching at the slightest deviation in the perfectly maintained muteness of my domicile

Every day I wake to the fresh new fears of a visitor, some hapless stranger that might intrude on my carefully constructed fortress of denial

Out there in the searing scrutiny of the real world I have the game well in hand, I am a jovial beast that boasts and jokes, the picture of tireless amicability !

Yet within these walls my mind is fettered and helpless, a mute manchild that slinks around in any available shadow clinging to its shade and solace

I speak to the dogs in frantic whispers; the utterances of a madman begging camaraderie of the canine occupants of this abode. Even they have to think I am crazy at this point.

Yet this is not the glamorous mental meltdown of the Hollywood elite or the charming disenchantment of slick beatniks. This is the uncomfortable failure of a common man's mind, an immense and all encompassing cloak of itchy wool that shrouds my awareness. This is , in no uncertain terms. the boring breakdown of a soul spread too thin.

I need to breathe.

I need to bring the outside in.

I know these things... I am immensely aware of how terribly true the above statements are, and still I shirk the sunlight impertinent enough to  dwell with such obnoxious persistence upon my hardwood floors.

I pray for rain on days like these, days where I can't muster the intellectual might to wrestle my insecurities into a tiny little box and stow them away where they aren't able to crawl out and prey on my juicy little sanity.

A shame there will be no rain this day, just  bright beautiful skies sprawled out above me. This is the sky you throw a frisbee under. The kind of sky that you toss a line into the river under. The kind of sky that occupies the sickeningly sweet dreams of people who paint pictures that will be hung up in the bathrooms of credit unions and fledgling real estate offices, but I have digressed again! These skies are not the skies for me today, they are the smug arrogant skies judging me from on high.

So I will sit here and improvise new ways to close out the self obsessed sunshine so keen on berating me and my faulty sense of self worth on this particularly trying day.  I've got thick flannel sheets, those will work!

I will sit here, obstinate and dignified in my humiliation sucking down cigarettes and sipping Koolaid from a pint glass, just waiting on rain clouds.