Is That What You’re Afraid Of? (audio)

You aren’t alone. If that’s what you’re afraid of you can lay that to rest. It is our pain which connects us and also what keeps us apart. Weird little math but I was never much good at math to begin with, you know what I mean.

Here’s some more math, though, while we are at it and this kind is the kind I understand so well it was unfastening my grip on what mattered to me most: one is too many and a thousand is never enough. That adds up perfectly to me. I get that in a way that is my sharpest threat and my deepest secret.

The thing about secrets is telling them can unlock doors you were not able to see were there before. There all along, isn’t that something? There was this talk about ‘moderation’ have you heard this? Drinking in moderation. Like you choose the time and the place and how many and make little rules and have a bunch of charts I guess or whatever, you make up your own math that only you understand and nobody else and you don’t explain it ever, ever, ever. And this, to me, is absolutely hilarious.

Take your poison carefully, destroy yourself but try to do it perfectly slow. Like make it sensual and sophisticated or whatever. Make it look good. Make it subtle, make it like a lovely little dragged-out, drugged-up poem.

Deliberate but not, you see what I am saying. It is so much fun isn’t it. Little trap doors all over town glistening in plain iridescent view. But only you can see them, is that right? Can’t anybody else see them like I do? The empty long-stemmed wine glasses turned upside down on that linen dove-wing table cloth, shining and prismatic in the tangerine evening sun. You are not alone. Drink me. The addict’s tiny inverted wonderland.

Freedom is a freaky thing. We say that’s what we want more than anything. The freedom, the freedom, freedom. . . to choose. For ourselves. What we want, what we need, what we say goes. But the freedom is only as good as the math. You can make your messy meandering life grades add up any way you want but there’s no guarantee you’ll pass.

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My book Luminae can be purchased on Amazon

You can find me on Instagram @allisonmarieconway