Torch-Bearer

11:34PM—and it is hard to go to sleep and stay such, for the mind awakes with new works and thoughts and writings to put on paper, beautiful and violent, half-formed and poetic. Thus do I arise!—and develop them, just a single pass through, write each word once, then to move on, maybe correct a typo, if I named it different in my head.

This one shall be violent, once again, and for the ego—I barely see where it goes, and we shall find out, for I am tired, and I wish again to return to my sleep and peaceful dreams. But that I am not the greatest writer mankind has produced!—except for two whom I consider my equals, Shakespeare of the poets, and Cervantes in literature.

I am greater, though, than Shakespeare!—I who write non-fiction, for non-fiction is reality, and I make it turn real, and one may speak to me, and change my viewpoints, and see in the next work I have incorporated and reflected upon new feedback. And pure poetry is not real, and it shall never turn with the dirtiness of this foul world, and it is soft and childish like a baby in this advantage, never tried nor tested, never to meet a tribulation or difficulty outside the imagination!

Cervantes is fiction, too, and in my cosmic laziness, shall I apply the same argument twice—and I assume the best of him, that he did indeed write Don Quixote as an introspective piece, and if he did not, then do I not elevate him, and make him more than he was? Maybe just another rascal, a Spanish one, and in my bounteous gratitude, do I assume the best.

How do I write, then, and how can I prove it no accident, that I have a talent Divine, let us say, and a trick or two up my sleeve?

Then, I have said it for a while, and I shall say it again, but I take counterpoint, and I apply it—and I find in one idea a facet or corner of its being, and I find a similar or inverse in another idea, and I magnify and examine and place the two beside one another, show them dazzling in spirit.

But I do this again and again!—and I let the two tracks operate in parallel, hints of one theme, and of another, playing together in a grander melody, not one to surpass Christ, but to include Him. And I am once again the masochist, who cannot stop himself!—but we shall analyze one of my own pieces, and a vulnerable one, never to let this heart be at peace, and in “The Mirror,” did I write of appreciation and love for a cousin of mine.

Do I let one idea run!—that of an intelligent, well-read woman, and in parallel, that of one who is blind to attributes but one, and who cares not for depth and subtlety of flavor, but to provide in shallowness a touch of profanity, profundity, and human spirit.

Let the two together, and they play nice, should I say—and I am merely a fan and, maybe, just a master on counterpoint, and this world can use a bit of my touch, and every day, may it be my last!—thus, do I write these, my funeral words, since nobody else shall say as well as I, what it was that I did in my meager, oh-too-short life.

I wonder how my cousin shall think, for I sent it to her, and she responded not—and I told her I knew she should never forgive me for it, but I was impressed and surprised that in the first place, did she read me and understand.

For I sent my work, too, to her mother!—my aunt, who immediately looked upon me with a mix of matronly concern and perhaps scolding, and I had to lay out the lines of my being, on the one hand to take as a burden each piece of her negative feeling to obliterate, on the other, to be a nephew and a relative, and to let another care for this young and tortured artistic soul.

And I look upon this world stern!—with a frown and slight disposition against, and everyone, do I imagine, adds weight upon my shoulders first, perhaps to remove it later, but likely not. See how flimsy are your heroes, sometimes!—for they have left the world, and have no more any responsibility to fight the battles and wars you wage, and it is up to you, and you alone, who are living and who carry the torch of this tradition forwards, this mantle of literature.

I, in my vanity, am the torch-bearer, who shall cast but the dimmest glow and source of heat.