imagine that you have a very good friend. you play with this friend, you give them a name, you eat and drink and break bread and spill wine and sleep with them. you listen to them breathe through the night and you wake up in the morning with them for so long, the crinkles and crevices on their skin are as dear as the veins on the back of your very own hand. you love this friend, you imagine this friend is your very best friend in the world - nay, the Universe - the sun only shines for you and this friend. day in and day out, you can't wait to finish your chores so you can be with your friend. for so long, you love this friend more than you love yourself, that's how much you love this dear dear friend and the world could crumble into nothing but flames and ash around you but you would very truly honestly be just completely not only OK, but very very good, as long as you were with your very good friend.
now.
imagine that one day, upon waking, you go to embrace this dear friend. how very happy you are, here is your friend! you behold their face, pure and true, feel their breath, deep and sour, but always new. your heart swells for the moment you know is coming, when they will be you, this communion that makes you whole, each time, like the first time and then you take them in your arms, and maybe the sun is rising or maybe it's setting, whichever you'd like, see it as you deem fit, when, suddenly, as you are taking them in to you, where you believe they will and shall forever be, into your very heart and soul even, at this moment, your very good dear wonderful sweet lovely perfect friend, they slowly begin to disappear. first from the inside. you don't see it right away, but you feel it, and that silly cold bitch of a snake called fear now sneaks into your own stomach too and she lickssss your inssidessss.
no, no, this simply cannot be. but you know it before you see it. from the inside out, they are disappearing. they are disappearing into nothing, and you are crying and screaming and shaking now and shaking them, wake up wake up stay, your very good friend, but they are slowly disappearing, from the inside out right there, right there right in front of you, until all that is left of them is a shell. the shell is not your good friend, the shell is nothing; it is practically a rock except that a rock couldn't shatter the way this shell could. you behold it finally, when the moment comes, when all that was inside of your dear friend has gone, and you are left, alone, aghast. first your heart is torn from your chest and broken like a brick over Atlas' knee, then your soul is shattered, smashed to smithereens on wet, salty rocks, like the way seagulls crush their lunch but you scurry about picking up your own pieces, putting back in your own eyes, and you turn to look at your very dear good friend.
and
you
realize
there.
was.
nothing.
ever.
there.
what do you do now? it is not even a pillar of salt. do you kiss the shell, do you kick yourself? that shell had once seemed to have been a person and you had loved them dearly, they had been your very good friend and you had had so so so so much fun. you had laughed like you were a child, you had loved like you were Juliette, you had taken out ads in the world newspaper announcing how very very very wonderful this shell was, but now who do you tell that.....it was only a shell???
oh you'd feel so so so silly and small, wouldn't you? there's help for addicts, but what about those addicted to them?
now.
imagine that one day, upon waking, you go to embrace this dear friend. how very happy you are, here is your friend! you behold their face, pure and true, feel their breath, deep and sour, but always new. your heart swells for the moment you know is coming, when they will be you, this communion that makes you whole, each time, like the first time and then you take them in your arms, and maybe the sun is rising or maybe it's setting, whichever you'd like, see it as you deem fit, when, suddenly, as you are taking them in to you, where you believe they will and shall forever be, into your very heart and soul even, at this moment, your very good dear wonderful sweet lovely perfect friend, they slowly begin to disappear. first from the inside. you don't see it right away, but you feel it, and that silly cold bitch of a snake called fear now sneaks into your own stomach too and she lickssss your inssidessss.
no, no, this simply cannot be. but you know it before you see it. from the inside out, they are disappearing. they are disappearing into nothing, and you are crying and screaming and shaking now and shaking them, wake up wake up stay, your very good friend, but they are slowly disappearing, from the inside out right there, right there right in front of you, until all that is left of them is a shell. the shell is not your good friend, the shell is nothing; it is practically a rock except that a rock couldn't shatter the way this shell could. you behold it finally, when the moment comes, when all that was inside of your dear friend has gone, and you are left, alone, aghast. first your heart is torn from your chest and broken like a brick over Atlas' knee, then your soul is shattered, smashed to smithereens on wet, salty rocks, like the way seagulls crush their lunch but you scurry about picking up your own pieces, putting back in your own eyes, and you turn to look at your very dear good friend.
and
you
realize
there.
was.
nothing.
ever.
there.
what do you do now? it is not even a pillar of salt. do you kiss the shell, do you kick yourself? that shell had once seemed to have been a person and you had loved them dearly, they had been your very good friend and you had had so so so so much fun. you had laughed like you were a child, you had loved like you were Juliette, you had taken out ads in the world newspaper announcing how very very very wonderful this shell was, but now who do you tell that.....it was only a shell???
oh you'd feel so so so silly and small, wouldn't you? there's help for addicts, but what about those addicted to them?
