I see faces pass me by. Faces that I used to know but they’re all strangers to the strange--they don’t know the world I know. I hear their voices, a whisper in my ear, telling me all the things I don’t want to hear. They tell me to straighten up my act, to choose the right path. They say, “you better get off this train cause it’s gonna crash.” But when you feel as though in your life you’re losing, you can’t remember that addiction is just another word for soothing. Everything and everyone you held close disappears when you open that cap and inhale that smoke. Send more powder through the nose, close your eyes and drift away… You know it’s not helping, it’s just numbing the pain but when everyone tells you you’re wrong, you find it’s more reason to prove your way’s the right way.

You say I’m too smart for this but intelligence was never my wish. I didn’t get to choose what was put inside my head and it’s the same for you; we just choose what we do. Even if you think I’m too good to get on the wrong track, I’ll tell you, no one’s too good to fall into the Minotaur’s trap. It’s a maze and with each step you take inside, the more you pretend you’re not getting closer and closer to the time you die. Pray I make it out alive? So do I. But no airlift can reach this cave, this hellish place. The only way out is further inside—feel the flames touch my face. They keep me from seeing this beast I must erase. Is that because he hides inside the human race? Inside our deepest desires? The vices we push into the dark and the thoughts we pretend we’re too great to cultivate? Well Pink, it’s time to tear down the Wall. You damn near lost it all but please know that the outside world can’t hurt you, can’t cause you a moment of pain. It’s the beast inside that will keep clawing and clawing ‘til you hit a vein. It’s when we’re big enough to know we can’t go it alone that we find the courage to say “protect me from what I crave.” It’s when you can feel the emptiness inside the rave that you find you have the right to fight the fight and know that fight is for your life.

As we grow old we may say we hope to forget the errors of our youthful days. We pass dawn to dark with a humdrum nine-to-five pace and pray it will erase. But will we also forget beautiful memories and friendships grown from past mistakes? Doesn’t a flower born in fire smell the same? When it’s all said and done, will we try to hide and to sweep it all under the rug? Or we will find you cannot cover up truth with lies. Even the ugliest past becomes uglier if you try to cover it with a mask. So let’s find our courage buried deep inside because it takes a lot to strip down to our toes---to just let all of our conditioning go. Let the world know you can uncover the human that you are, your body sent from God. Let us see the animal that you hide behind all those suits and ties. Strip down to the barest so that your soul may shine through in hope that others will too so you can find another who is made of the same soul as you.