The Final Misdirection

I’m not like everyone else. Never have been, never will be.

My soul is a paint can of swirling red, purple, yellow, sky blue, and muddy brown. Each color one of life’s many opportunities and screw ups.

In my everyday, unordinary life, I see possibility. I look for ways to edit average into the extraordinary. The only risk is trust and belief.

All I need to do is paint the world you want to see. To color your skin, mark your breast, to whitewash me on you and into you.

I am Bacchus who takes faith and fornicates with it. Each movement slides sleek and shiny, taking conviction like sweet honey and pours it into the marrow of desire. Fingers touch. Lips part. Breath mingles. We dance under the Hunter’s Moon. Legs wrap like candy. Our bodies glide, cling, and foam around each other. The night ends with exclamations of Hallelujah and proclamations of damnation.

Morning wakes us. It does not matter. You are broken by the contradiction in my eyes and the boniness of my voice. I am the cockroach scuttling away when the light is turned on.

A string of liquid tomorrows proffer hope and solace. Words creep from my mouth like Hubris grasping calamity and retribution in each hand as she oozes out of Pandora’s Box. I am Socrates’ cave, each syllable a poor shadow of what is right and true. That is what I am. A shadow on the wall. And you are the prisoner chained into believing I am real but now see me for who I am. Turn on the light and I am gone.

How do I live truth in a world of thieves and tricksters? How do I sound like a sunrise and see the ocean breeze when I am the greatest thief? I have been called God’s final misdirection.

Vision has never been an issue of consequence for me. The path is sure and smooth even when everyone else is lost and wandering. Articulating my path, to sound it out, to live it clearly, is where I fall short.

I see where I have to go, but when I speak my intentions, I know I am a liar.

God created man and gave him a wife. Noah had a flood and built a boat. Moses freed his people from slavery and parted an ocean. Samson destroyed an army with the jawbone of an ass. His strength sheared and blinded by his enemies, but with faith the Bible’s strongman pulled down the pillars of Dagon. David killed the giant with a rock and his sling. From the hatred and lust he built an empire.

God gives adversity not to punish but so men of clay and women of sinew can write their story. Our legend is grown from the rubble of our lives, the ash of hopeless love, and with the broken sword of truth we cleave through friends and family.

Seek out trouble and in the searching, kingdoms are made.

Watch how I built a kingdom of sand.

When I was younger I trumpeted my dreams like triumphs. I made big plans. I saw them clearly but my feet were too small and hands unsure. Instead of moving forward I sat and lived in the sky. My life was a pale white reflection moaning in the blue firmament. Clouds became knights fighting dragons.

I was St. Michael throwing the dragon from Heaven’s Gate.

I was St. George killing the dragon.

Instead of finding my snake to wrestle and conquer, I lived in fables and legends, unable to write my personal mythology.

I had no true contests but the ones in my sweet imagination. Any rewards promised were washed away by the dark spirits and one too many gin and tonics.

Once I saw fields and forests beyond the mountains. My voice shouted.

I told wise men to watch for my coming. The gates flung open and these men poured coffee and waited for me. At their invitation my throat clenched tight. I wrote down my dreams but in the end I did nothing.

Today the earth under me is blurred. The timbre of my voice cracks under the weight of a cross made of white feathers.

My hopes squeak. I am shrill and flat.

I see the faraway cities. Their call for morning prayers and evening dinner tug at my inner Odysseus. A ten-year journey to Ithaca made of nothing.

I have been in the desert forty years and have not wandered.

The wise men speak their philosophies. They argue politics. The coffee smells good. Their words would end my hunger. But the invitation has been rescinded and I am not Moses.

What good is feeding my soul when my feet are flat and tethered to my heart? It hides in daily distress?

What is the point of seeing a cacophony of colors and hearing a palette of sounds when I fail to make a step?

My spirit is crippled and embryonic. It finds just enough strength to pull me off the rocky path to keep me safe from loss and heartbreak.

I did not risk.

I did not climb from a hot African savannah to the cold flat top of Mount Kilimanjaro.

I have not walked Prague’s cobbled streets or engaged in late night conversation with Parisian street philosophers.

I did not sip coffee in Turkish bazaars or dug my feet in the white sand of a lost island.

I never stole a kiss off the lips of the pretty gypsy girl standing against the city wall. And she never had a chance to break my heart.

I was safe.

To see true is a gift. To sound clear and move with intention is right. And to never try is a living death.

I am dead.

There is an old saying, “To forgive is to set a prisoner free and to discover the prisoner was you.”

I wish I could forgive but the liar in me refuses contrition and I cannot give penance.

What do I do?

I do nothing.

Learn from my tale.

Quote by Lewis B. Smede

_________________________ Michael Ritoch plays at being a poet/writer. He finds joy in his wife, two daughters, cats, one is really fat and the other is neurotic, reading philosophy written by old dead guys, and his friends. He writes about leadership, pain, life, suffering, and whatever comes to mind.

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