For so long I was angry.  I was distressed and full of energy and confusion.  I was swayed easily by my naivety. And my anger was directed towards, in retrospect, so many things which bore me no ill will, nor had the immediate impact upon which my life would have hinged, nor my anger justified.  And thus my feelings may have been summed up by this music,

And for a time, that was the sonic nutrient upon which I fed.  And after many seasons, I felt a shift in my construct.  The anger abated, and a helplessness ensued.  A numbing of my senses was applied, and I found a new mantra.

I don’t know if it was a failure on my own part,  or a colossal mistake on the part of the cosmos, but I failed to vaporize.  In yet another example of failure, I managed not to unexist myself.  So my state took yet another turn, and I fell into a state of loathing, punctuated by this song.

For so long this caused deep, heart wrenching, and often booze-tinged sighs and the slow, contemplative closing of my eyelids. Until this artist faded from relativeness, or so it seemed.  But in grand and punctilious fashion, Damien Rice managed to reemerge, and capture the feeling my heart and guitar can’t seem to express.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCkCWjc8xVI

And for this fragile, less than five minute moment, I feel understood.  I feel accepted.  I sense a person with whom I relate.   And I hear the schick, schick, schick, sound the match has made on the side of the box.  I hear the fffscuh as the match catches and ignites, and the sulfurous wisps catching my nostrils.  With eager, light-starved eyes, I witness the immolation of a waxen pillar, and I exhale.

And I don’t know what’s next,

J