Only poles and pillars protect my person. From what, I am still unaware - but after a horrible experience of being stared down for no reason, once again. I realise that I am still myself. Regardless of the packaging.
A wizard of Was. I now see that all it takes to leave me a tangled jumble of overtly sensitised nerves, is a well-placed stare. Unbelievable. I still can’t meet people’s stares with one of my own. I can never laugh or look people in the ‘eye’. Is that cowardice, shame or virtue? My guess is neither.
I have yet to figure out what it is about people at large that frightens me to death. I can act the lunatic to perfection in the company of friends. I can dance my dementias in docile ‘Dolly’ styles for family and I can fake fractured emotions with plastic acceptance for foes. It is always the in-betweens that get under my skin. The undefined, mass of ‘people’ sitting behind desks at convenience stores, page-makers at the office that I have to direct and servants I constantly feel guilty asking to bring me a glass of water. These are the people who scare me, in the most literal sense of the word. My palms are sweaty, my tongue twisted and my stomach in knots. It is ‘all the others’ that I cannot face. Perhaps because I have not yet been able to pick a face that works for ‘just people’. I certainly can’t stick with my own.
In the depths of Tartarus, Eros was said to trap more than just bypassing sailors. The depths of the sea-caves held nymphs who, of their own will, were too terrified of looking in the mirror that framed their gate-way to freedom. The Nymphs lingered eternally in the caves, with their backs turned to the gate.
Only the incredibly naïve and overtly fanciful believe that the nymphs still linger.
Which is why I know that they do.
Oh! Mary Mary quite contrary
Putting on a fabulous show
Your winsome smiles and nonsense guiles
Are just pretty put-ons for the pranksters that know…
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