On the Thermodynamics of Hellfire

Some say we, the people, are rational little beings walking around on two legs, unmoved like boulders. If that’s true, I’m the most ridiculous of boulders, because everything moves; it’s like I’m molten. There are no guidelines to follow. No street signs, no traffic code, not even the laws of thermodynamics apply here. This is lawlessness made rock. Made frog in my throat. Choking up the passageways like too many words in mid tumble. Makes me cry like an elephant at a roadside funeral. I should soak myself in iodine and jump into a pool of cotton balls. I should get healed. (As if someone, something could do it for me). I should climb into an industrial sized garbage bag (perforated) filled with echinecea leaves (dried) and then jump into a vat of hot water (boiled). I should practice cynicism, and be stoic. I should leave Dionysus alone, relegate him back to lonely mount Olympus where he belongs; leave him to his soiled libations undisturbed.

But I want to make sense of this. I want to squeeze it between my fingers like crushed grapes, or ground slugs. I want it to speak to me, and tell me where I’ve gone wrong. I want it to jangle around and make noise like a mariachi band. I want it to sing ballads in the name of lost heroes. I want it to tell me all the alternate endings for stories that were never begun. I want it to teach me something. But instead, I’m Tantalus, wading through swamps of meaning, as dream interpretation books float by. If I were a butterfly, i’d crawl back into the genie’s lamp. (He’s got a hookah in there somewhere.)  I’d fly into the flame, preferring brilliance to whatever this is.