Crippled

By Liz

I’m having trouble distinguishing the difference between a shotgun and a telephone. Yesterday I picked up the phone and announced, "I have no legs." There was never a moment when I sat wistfully, wondering what life as a cripple would feel like. In my vain attempt to conquer fear, I just wanted to hold a gun. We hold this absolutely mind-blowing power, this massively destructive capacity to blow more than that.

Human beings struggle like flies, and as such it is only fitting that we insist on pulling off our own legs. We can’t see the web, that invisible spider silk that holds everything in mathematical order. It spirals out from a logical center, the epicenter of our aftershocks, the “point” we’re all debating. In the struggle to find an escape, the flies are overwhelmed and devoured.

Está nuestra tragedia... pensamos que tenemos que sufrir para ganar la derecha de la verdad.

I think in Spanish now, more often than I realize and most often when I’m drunk. I’ll catch myself with a phrase stuck in my head and realize it’s familiarly foreign. Sometimes I wake up scanning the remnants of my dream for evidence of a comprehensibly bilingual construction, believing earnestly that my successful existence on a second plane of communication will bring me closer to… what? This endless pursuit of knowledge is riddled with mindless equations.

It is our tragedy... to know nothing, yet feel everything.

Unauthorized Copying Is Prohibited. Ask the author first.
Copyright 2005 Liz
Published on Monday, March 21, 2005.     Filed under: "Poetry"
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Comments on "Crippled"

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  • Bluegirl On Friday, September 22, 2006, Bluegirl (177)By person wrote:

    Beautiful.. "To know nothing, but feel everything." Excellent write!

  • Anth On Tuesday, March 22, 2005, Anth (1133)By person wrote:

    the first part really displays your writing skill, as if woven by a mechanical spider...it was the thinking in spanish part i really loved though,powerful too

  • A former member wrote:

  • Forgotten Angel On Monday, March 21, 2005, Forgotten Angel (310)By person wrote:

    wow..amazing..i cant say enough good things..but..wow...-Kel

  • A former member wrote: This was very strong and very....very blunt in a way. I don't know quite as well as I should, but this was amazing.

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