Your Own Unique Brand of Insanity

If you do erase the absence

That defines you, you erase you.

Take imagery and wring its neck.

Avoid dramatis personae.

Above all, keep a watchful eye

On the shadows of narrative

Slipping in and out of the trees.

Everyone knows what stories do,

But nobody knows why stories.

Possibly because they’re compact

And they keep all their pieces linked,

Which helps keeps memory stable,

Allows language to encode more

Data than it otherwise could.

Sounds plausible, but plausible

Will always teeter on the brink

Where explanations plunge to tales.

Recognizing that brink, the fall,

Takes all your energy, tempts you

To paint images of abyss.

Just remember Hell is vacant,

Heaven, too. Absence becomes you.