a story

fraught with

contradictions

by Roberto Lavidez

the whole

thing

speaks

for itself

the spoken

and unspoken

lingua franca

of exclusionism

rooted

in a

sense

of injury and

identification

you never

see the

uncomfortable

reality of

the other

side

until

it affects

you

directly

it is

inner-

directed

and once

started

in a certain

direction

cannot

deviate

from it

vaults into

a kind of

Joycean

monologue

at once

analyst

and subject

bidding

good

riddance

to the

democratic

principles

of liberty

equality and

fraternity

a story

fraught

with

contradictions

outside

and inside

the mind

of the

refuser

evolved

from

quite

different

preexisting

morphologies

by virtue

of its

compulsion

to reduce

every

aspect

of existence

moving

ahead

by fits

and starts

producing

their own

special

peculiarities

of form

isolated by

their

mutual

antagonisms

or aversions

leaving

behind

only

scraps of

half-

remembered

details

staved off

by the

many

diversions

which

each day

brought

we live

in a kind

of world

bound

together

by the

primacy

of blood

lineage and

language

but where

no one

listens

staring

only

at the

eye

of a

strange

and

endless

storm

suffering

a vertigo

brought on

by the

sudden

changes

of unsettling

impact

you are

in your

own

mind

condemned

to hell

where

a series

of incongruous

completely

unrelated

images

merge

in a

matrix

of changing

patterns

metastasizing

like a

cancerous

growth

it must

be kept

in mind

just

how

unusual

this may

seem

but as

a habit

of the

unrelenting

heart

nothing

less than

the evident

leaves

a taste

on the

tongue

a natural

consequence

of continued

interconnections

and the

uncomfortable

reality

of being

yourself

©robertolavidez2013