The Pariah

I am the Pariah, the Ishmael of the microcosm that I was once a member of. Amongst peers, I am peerless, not because of my irrefutable ability, but because I was a non-conformist. I yearn the closeness of a fellow human being, but abhor the vulnerabilities that come with the association. I wish to be loved, but have forgotten what is like to love. I am the abomination of humankind, the very essence of what it is to be an outcast.

Each time when I thought I was a part of a group, circumstances would always show otherwise. The world I live in is a constricting cube of norms, not all of them understandable, not all of them comprehensible. As the months turn into years, the more I live in this world, the more I wish I never lived.

Many a time, the will to live had deserted me, yet somehow I was denied the sweetness of death by factors all encompassing, as though it were my karmic retribution to be in constant suffering. Surrounded by the temptations of a thousand hedonistic practices, lured by the seduction of the evil twin sisters of the muse, I struggle past each day trying to be oblivious to all that is occurring around, with my steadfast holding of the small spark of determination that stems from my life quest of seeking knowledge.

But with each passing day, I find the winds of change increasing in intensity, and at times, that spark that I hold so dearly to seemed all but vanquished, raising my hopes that my piteous existence would be snuffed out once and for all, only to have them dashed like waves upon rocks, with the spark enfeebled but hardly dead. Oh woe it is to be living the life of the unliving!

My rational intellect was torn asunder from aeons past, through the three times of silliness I led myself into, the same three times where I exposed my heart and all to the cruelties that made the world. And thrice I exposed, thrice I did fall, hard each time, from the uncaring stabs from those I thought cared the most. A year of construction had commenced since the last defeat, and slowly but sadly, the fortress was built anew, with nary a thought for any save for myself.

Me. Myself. I!

The fortress that held the castle of the heart is now desolate of the once warm springs of love and emotion. In the throne of Eros now sits the Dark Lord who ruled the land of the unliving, poisoning the ventricles of the beating heart with spite and rage that burned the blood into a boiling mass of chaos. Gone are the compassion and empathy, gone are the feelings of comfort. Welcome to the despair, to the blackness, to the pure feeling of suffering. Such is the lot of my life.

As I sit here fulminating from the recesses of my soul, I wonder when will my karma of suffering finally end.