Bad News

I wish my quiet sense of self  was just mine again. I wish I didn't have to ask for it. Ten years and more since some lecherous manchild helped with a lucky break only to obsessively stalk my every last curiosity and distribute them like comicbook trading cards. Ten years and more of people procrastinating doing the one honorable thing to correct this. I try to eat well, sleep well, take walks, avoid feeling sorry for myself: Poems, stories, notes, clarity emerges. In another life this might count as some kind of artistic achievement but here it's just enough to make things temporarily pleasant or provide a fleeting sense of joy before it's supplanted by the homogeneous faces of strangers whose reflex towards sympathy goes no farther. I accept, decompress, maintain and use up the hours until the day is gone. The lecherous manchild has his comicbook fantasies fulfilled by the malleability of the timid. And tomorrow it starts over again. 

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