BRIDAL CHAMBER

It'll stay.  It won't fall off.  Together.  You'll remain together.  You won't get torn asunder.  You'll remember.  The steps won't be forgotten.  It's OK.  Even if you stumble.  You'll get up.  Even if you take a particularly nasty spill, you'll rise up again.  Eventually.  If it takes days and weeks and months and years.  The healing will course through your narrow and obstinate little passages in that body of yours.  That body of yours.  When you get absorbed into a larger body than yours.  A community you can call yours unless they somehow are too busy or have no interest in your interests.  Your interests could be of no interest to anyone's interest.  Hmm.  Interesting.  How that happens.  Shit happens.  People never change.  So don't rely on people.  The change has to come from inside you.  Inside those narrow thin thin passages clogged with those passages you find so interesting when no one else does.  Interesting.  Interesting how you find those passages interesting that couldn't possibly interest anyone else.  Listen to my words.  This is a teachable moment.  Unless you miss it.  So don't miss it.  Don't miss it.  Don't quit.  Don't give in.  Don't let me down.  Don't let him down.  Don't let yourself down.  Don't forget to put yourself last.  Make time for yourself.  When you can.  Never tell yourself you can't.  Remember the little train.  Watch your train of thought.  My train of thought is more like a wrecking ball.  Not much into the rail.  Not much into melancholy.  So smile and pull yourself up.  In spite of a possible overly chronic illness and bad luck that just sabotages your pursuits.  No matter what you persevere.  Perseverance is the key.  Too many keys can be confusing.  The fewer the better on the key chain.  Less to fumble around with.  Unless you really succeed and acquire a great deal.  But I doubt it.  I mean you're not into that.  As much as I've tried.  Tried and tried.  Tried I did.  And for what?  Here you are.  Keep it together.  It'll hold.  Even if it all falls apart in the most catastrophic way and the ramifications and the damage is devastating.  You'll pull through.  And remember to push sometimes.  Not every door is a pull.  Some are to be pushed.  Just make sure you don't smash me on the other side.  Sometimes you have to take one for the team.  Keep that in mind.  In your mind.  Use your mind.  Your own mind.  Free thinker that you are.  Couldn't teach you a blessed thing.  Use that free mind.  Go ahead.  You are responsible for your decisions and the consequences.  Consequences for your actions of your mind.  Use that mind of yours.  Mark my words.  Mark this down.  Write it down.  Paper and pen.  Keep it handy.  Work with your hands.  Not so cerebral all the time.  So intellectual all the time.  Hands.  Be handy.  Close at hand.  Hand it over.  Sacrifice.  Think of others.  Make time for yourself.  Can be drudgery.  It'll be a lot of the same thing day in and day out.  Weekends fade like a weak radio channel that can never get quite right.  Same thing.  Everyday.  Same story.  Same old story.  Whether you tape it or staple it or pin it or screw it, it still ruins the wall.  Hang it anyway.  Fill in the empty space.  Make it your space.  Claim your space.  Fill in the void.  Even when the void is so huge you feel you're falling in every waking and sleeping moment of your life.  Fill it in with anything.  Cars, planes, houses, food, children, dreams, lies, stories.  Stories like the one about the ant that worked as an inspector for hospitals.  Its specialty was in ensuring compliance with fire safety and adherence to evacuation procedures.  The ant was adamant that hospital administration had their workers hang signs mapping out escape routes in the appropriate locations throughout the many tributaries and passages throughout the structure.  The ant climbed one of the walls in an effort to make a closer examination of one specific hanging.  The workers pointed out to the administration several hours later that the ant inspector was nowhere to be found.  Administration insisted that they had done lunch and then recalled 20 minutes later that they were actually mistaken.  One of the workers discovered the ant had gotten stuck under the tape holding the evacuation sign to the wall.  Since it had been several hours and it was time to go home as well as the ant suffering irreparable brain damage, they decided to postpone inspection until next quarter.  The moral of that story is that you are moral no matter how people treat you.  Let it be a lesson to them.  Let it be a lesson to you.  Use your mind.  Mark my words.  This is your day.  Take your hands away from it.  Let it go.  Let it be.  It'll hold.  Unless it falls completely apart in the most incredible disaster in this hemisphere.  Hemisphere.  Use the one that's more dominant.  Whichever one that is.  Use your mind.  Mark my words.  This is your day.  Act your age.  You'll be older before you know it and deader than the dead material you're made out of.  Do your best.  For you.  For me.  For others.  Make time for yourself.  Use your mind.  Mark my words.  This is your day. 


- Max Stoltenberg