Insatiable Doppelganger

You shrink at the feet of desperation, that excessive tyrant who pushes you into a stinking alleyway where your desires, like a gang of delinquents, are waiting to overtake you. Their anemic eyes are shadowed by lack; their greedy hands rifle through your pockets, turning them inside out onto the filthy ground. Angry at finding nothing they demand everything…the sun, the moon, passion's pulsing lifeblood that feeds your lean soul.

You cower at their grandiose demands until you’re but a thread of a person; a deflated worm desperately inching your way below …to that familiar hole, moist with the rotting remains of what might have been and needs to be. Your isolation cocoons you; binding you in Havishamian veils tattered by time and choked expectations.



Living underground, where blindness inspires introspection and melancholy morphs into madness, you cut a deal with the traffickers of delusion and hysteria…those needy street kids who blame you for their lot. Casting crumbs, they scramble for the loot, skinny hands and knobby knees colliding, rumbling like malnourished Crypts vying for turf and dominance.

You’re astounded with their naivety, and feel foolish for being afraid, for believing their threats. You wonder how you came to such a state, becoming an insatiable doppelganger, craving the universe, yet blind to the nonpareil treasures gifted to you by life; winking like stars in the know, silently waiting for your appreciation…as you dwell in the dust, languishing in an empty hole.