deepundergroundpoetry.com

A Lesson to be learned

My tale begins at around midday today, 17th February 2011. I had attended my Philosophy lecture on Marx and sat through the information deluge that I had mostly already known due to having studied Marx in Mind and World last term near the end of the year. So I was back in halls with time to kill. I could have a nap but wasn't sleepy, make lunch but wasn't hungry, or fall.

I chose to fall, to debase myself and become a slave to the passions. I will not detail my crime, rather the punishment that followed. I enjoyed the images, I lusted over them until I finally achieved rapture in my alone time. This rapture that I refer to as 'natural high' and an alternative to drink. Drink is better for people, it is social and normal. I completed my crime and moved on.

So I had lunch, played on the computer a bit and then turned my attention to planning some work, an English essay. I thought that this 'work' would equalize my deeds. I was wrong. I would pay in blood.

I was in the shower, cleaning and cleansing myself, my deed far behind me. My mind was aflame with ideas on how to make the government accountable for their actions. A society where the rich were penalized if they were lazy or any other such vice. Where politicians would have power, but not money and funds to become corrupt or to control the media and further their career. I thought of a few metaphors, how I would state the whole thing, the essay, a personal essay, and how it would become legendary.

Amidst my thoughts of this normative account, I rubbed my jaw to peruse for any hairs that I had failed to shave off earlier. It always happens and I have to shave it off to get a smooth face, and accidentaly cut myself in the process. Usually it is only a small nick that stops within a few moments, and of no worry.

This time was different. My punishment was at hand. I shaved my top lip and when the hairs remained still, I shaved again but with more force this time. I cut my lip on the left side and immediately felt it was wrong. Looking at my gillette shaver I saw some pale dead skin stuck in the blade, so I washed it off. I felt the sting, but more than that, I tasted iron, I tasted blood.

I supped on my blood letting the wound flow, thinking it would not last. Yet the blood kept streaming forth, the sanguine torrent did not stop. A basin full of cold water did not cauterise the wound. All it did was get water up my nose and allow me to see my precious life force stream away through the sink like scarlet smoke through palpable air. I had cut my lip. This had not happened before. I did not know there was such a lot of blood there. My terracotta lips were stained and were ever refilling no matter how much I lapped at the fluid.

I had to turn off the shower, wrap myself in a towel, put on my dressing gown, and all with one hand to my lip to stem the tide. I had to ask a flatmate in the communal halls for a plaster, forgetting I had a whole stash in my wardrobe in my panic. I thanked her, mumbling something far too informal for my appearance: my black hair sticking up, my face covered in soap suds, one hand to my lip and my dressing gown wrapped around me, wet feet in slippers. She, and other flat members, were sometimes wearing less than I was when they popped into the communal kitchen. They still covered up the necessary areas, but only wore a vulgar bath towel.

The first plaster did not last long on my face and flapped loose within a few minutes. Raiding my personal first aid box I found waterproof plasters and applied one to my upper lip. Foolishly I returned to the shower to wash off the soap and shampoo that bedecked me. No sooner had I shortly finished, than the second plaster came loose due to water exploiting weak points where there had been ridges.

I then applied another plaster, the one I wear now at the time of writing, typing, and dried my hair. Contemplating the situation, I could only conjure up childish platitudes.
I should have focussed on the task in hand.
I should not have indulged myself.
I should not have been so vain.
I had suffered for my art.
But who will read this? This is more a message to myself, a warning, rather than to anyone else. Still, you can at least read into my personal life somewhat.

Thus I sit here, rubbing, fondling and stroking the plaster on my lip, with a visage similar to some archetypal villain or fallen hero. What a Lucifer I am, punished for my actions through blood loss and burning hellfire stinging.

I must learn from this lesson.
Written by Viddax (Lord Viddax)
Published
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