25.20

25.20

You believe that one day you will be able to find your way, that the fever will break and set you free. I realized long ago that it was freedom that you wanted, but you continue to run head-first into that which enslaves you. Dreaming and swearing and constantly falling in love, it is a never-ending madness. Each drop of medicine only makes you sicker. Can you hear the storm clouds approaching? Hear the noise of the workmen as they build for you your tower? You will climb the stairway to reach god as you hold your lucky charm in your fingers. Reciting prayers that you learned as a child as you climb each step, higher and higher, you believe that magic never lies and that god makes all smiles, but in your heart you know the truth. Tonight you will burn your candles in the tower of your heart and you will worship the worm. You consider the worm to be one of god’s most useful creatures. Like the worm, you were born old, much older than you give away. You are sad and heavy and play the part of the tortured soul very well. Most people don’t realize that it is only an act with you, something that you try on for a season or two. Everyone knows your name as Mr. Crowley, but I know you as a brother. You see the bad before you can see the good. One would think that you were born a Capricorn. In all your evil workings you strive to do the right thing. You want to balance the books of karma. The night falls all around you as we go to dinner. You throw off the grayness of the day like a worn coat or a tattered robe. You are evoking a world of thought and feeling. We are coldly aware of the singular absence that haunts our lives. We hold up our drinks and toast the absence. We drink to the emptiness and to the king of nothing. We are familiar with the emptiness and are intimately aware of the various shades of emptiness that makes up one’s life. Mr. Crowley speaks to the emptiness with a full-throated roar that he was born with. He reminds me of the immense world of emptiness that I am familiar with. The day would be over and I would mingle with the crowds, being both pushed and shoved. I would be both fighting for a life and taking one. I dwelled in the realm of contradiction in the mesmerizing spell of the nothingness. When we have nothing, there is no guide to show us the way, no map to provide direction. All previous treasures mean nothing to us now. Our treasure is in the promise of hopelessness. The glamour has been replaced by seduction.