The Zen Survivor

The gods, said someone
I think it was Voltaire
Are comedians playing to an audience who are too scared to laugh
It's not exactly what I meant when I stormed out of the church
At twelve years old: "this God's a fucking clown!"

You are my hero
Because I watched you gain x-ray vision
Wiping the gauze in your eyes at the faerie birth
Now you see the machinery of Moloch beneath the glamour

They tried to medicate our non-compliance
They beg us to turn off our brains
They put you in a cage and they beat me beyond standing
They reach into your mind and rearrange the furniture like the Manson family,
But I'll move it all back

For years I've watched them educate for compliance over brains
From my observatory-tower-prison
When you broke free I crawled from my crystaline tomb,
"Acerbic yet benevolent
A little frightening but a little ridiculous"- and flew home,
Straight as the crow

Now we look like hell
But our eyes shine for heaven
Some things are to die for,
Some of those things worth living for,
And some things are even worth motherfucking fighting for

It's just like you to do that
You've got some kind of talent for piercing the veils
It's just like me to always be jumping out of a new closet like
Have you hugged a dragon yet today? Or like
It's always a good day when it doesn't snow in Peru

I realized when I foresaw the possibility of downfall
It was worth every drop of sweat and blood just to leave the birdcage
The enlightenment is in the struggle;
Ask yourself, "What is the desire
That brought me to this life?"

And so the circle had led me back to where I'd started
Thus the category that means, "Returning"
But- as is wont to happen- taught by the journey
And back at the place where it all began,
I called upon my gods and broke into laughter