The second after the car crash the silence explodes and that still shock wave sucks eardrums into convex distortions that assimilate the plundered brain and vacant soul—for a fraction of a second you are your basic self.

An addict’s best high is her last flight or the trip she makes through screaming hell on hell-fired rocks all the way to the hair torn confessional where a population of failure swarms her but one atomic nucleus of possibility gets swallowed and—for a fraction of a second she is her basic self.

At the drill or printing press, on the line or on the website, cobbling shoes or hedge fund deals, at the mill or under the wheel or behind the wheel or wheeling and dealing or washing dishes, or filling orders, taking orders, bussing tables, driving buses, filling tanks or welding tanks or telling banks and all the billion ways we do our bit to earn our bread and pay the rent or piper or the very devil to stop the weight from crushing us—when each day it’s quittin’ time—for a fraction of a second we are a basic self.

We, the children of Want and Ignorance—we, the throng—unwashed unwanted masses—humanity’s noisome core, hidden in plain sight the better to ignore, the better to accuse, the better to scorn, to abuse and best of all to blame—we have no car to crash in—we have no booze to drown in—we have no occupations except to find a cup—to fill it and to sup—to keep our babies dry and warm and fed—and despite a symphony of industry, despite the global commercial crescendo, despite the chorale hymns of praise ascending—the war is waged in silence yet Loneliness is the loudest silence in all the world—

for each eternal second we are our basic selves


Image: “Your Tired Your Poor Your Huddled Masses”[1]

[1] Found at: http://home.earthlink.net/~old-etcher/YourTiredYourPoorYourHuddledMasses.htm (used without permission and with apologies to the unknown artist; no credits were attributed at this website)