Razor Bones

"...barriers of social indifference..." Such a way with words I have. I'm so gifted. Ahhhh. But I watch myself, in public, and I see the pause, the deliberate pause I take between the time someone asks me a personal question and when I answer. I'm calculating. There's an encyclopedia of suspected motives that I have to examine, before I figure I know how to answer. No spontaneity. Hardly any. What's up with that?

Today someone came up to me and made a deliberate point to say, repeatedly, that I'd been in a good mood lately and that it was really nice. I had no affect about the comment. I simply processed it and replied that I hadn't been aware that I was always in a bad mood. "Oh no, it's not that -- it's just that you've been in a good mood, and it's noticeable, and nice. " Huh. Interesting. Mr. Spock at work. Later, thinking these things over as we do, I supposed that I might have seemed defensive. But I wasn't. I was just indicating the unspoken fact of how out of touch I am with the impression I make on people.

I don't try at all. Not in the least. And it's only comments like his that would make me aware that it's wrong, not to try, or care. I just don't think anyone notices me. If I allowed myself to have an emotion about that fact, it would make me profoundly sad. Such a need for isolation. Such a dread of being noticed. So much vulnerability, buried so deep that you can't even hear the cries. Yeah, it's a little sad.

Like with my overweight friend. He puts on a good show. You'd never know there was any sensitivity there, unless you decided to look for it. To do that, to try to breach his walls, you'd have to breach your own.

I could talk about being a perceptive and sensitive child in an indifferently brutal household. I could chart out the transformation from flesh to circuitry. I could choke out that American Dream. Why bother. Not every body needs an autopsy. More to the point is the fact, newly realized, that we do, all of us, have more of an effect than we might think.

On a related note, I've decided I have another nickname, aside from "The Jackhammer" and "The Nightmare". I'll be answering to "Razor Bones" from now on. Address all private correspondences accordingly. I'm pleased to note that the only other major appearance my new name has on the internet is as a heroin chic alternative clothing company. They do, I must admit, antedate me. There is another Forgotten Prophets, I'm annoyed to say -- some fantasy role playing site. I thought that's what this is. But my FP is older -- taken from the title of one of my brilliant poems from a previous decade, and which may be found in these very pages, for those intelligent enough to look. As for the rest of you, you are insignificant, and unworthy of notice. Poor, pathetic creatures. You would just make me sad, if I were aware of you.

Oh. The last thing I said? About that discussion on my mood? I said, "It's probably my son. Five years. That's a lot of stress." Caring costs a lot.


J