A Series of Symbolic Walls

         I’m required now to remove all of these images from these walls that surround me, in order to make way for a century of decline. The painlessly applied scotch tape will likely strip away the paint, and please excuse the hyperbole, but it feels like everything might go back to meaning nothing again.

         To start with, an unfamiliar shirtless man upper-cuts another shirtless man; the second man’s face contorts with the force of the blow. There are video game characters I might never know, cattle-herders herding cattle, leaping snowboarders, symbols of unknown origin, a sharp-fanged anime beast, and bruised knees embracing the hand holders. With various modes of transport, sporting equipment, and a rose, the symbolism becomes obviously unclear. But I digress into truth too often, so let me forgo any analysis of what any of this means or what is true or not true regarding these images and just let the images wash over the reader, like an ablution.

         Try to look outside, but no, we cannot. However, beside the blinds, there are dogs and birds in flight – not dogs in flight, no, but birds in flight, in the shape of a “V” in a sky. The music is there too, in instrumental form and various pseudo-spiritual emblems. Wiz, Suicide, Peep, Marley, Brides, Maidens, Floyd’s, Avenged, cereal rappers, Bob Ross, Snoop, Marley again, Suicide again, Peep again, Leon, Trailer-Park, Furious, Bandicoot, Tony, Mac, Mac, Joker, and a soldier. What any of this means, I cannot tell you for sure, as I do not know, but I have a feeling, I think. I always thought I had a feeling. But I cannot describe this feeling due to its nebulous nature and its quickly fading words. So it is with meanings.

         The makes and models of various other modes of transport do not make any difference now, perhaps they never did. Monster-truck tires on a Chevelle or a low-rider Cadillac or a Cummins diesel or a rock crawler, all pretty much an amalgamation of variously interpreted ideas, seemingly clustered together without purpose.

         Care Bears and unicorns and a smiling face among many frowning faces, a green light across the water playing a guitar I’ll never play. Cry Baby crying, masked. and broken by injustice. But Kermit with an AK and a psychotic gingerbread man must hold something within, but I don’t know what it might be or what purpose it might serve. Perhaps I need to laugh more. I’ll try, I promise, from now on, I’ll try to laugh more.

         Calves and bulls, soccer ball or basketball, and Bob Marley one more time, please, one more Bob Marley, please. And there’s the Reaper upon the long bridge to Astoria. All in a tattoo on a disembodied arm. I’m working my way around, please be patient if you hope to find anything that means anything. There’s the video game controller, powerless as it is, beside tattoos and forgotten meanings and symbols vaguely meaningful to someone somewhere – where are they now? 1+1=3. Memes and propaganda, bad math and a mouse beside Bob Marely. Bart Simpson jumping a bear in a silly hat. Grim screaming skull over cash and roads to locations unknown, guided by well-lit doorways, candles, and ships against the storm, spilling the salt across the Milky Way and some creepy creature that smiles. A man within a man, filling in for his brain, I suppose. Music and a tiger cub vs. a butterfly. Lichtenstein for tearful drama, impossible dirt-bike jumps, and varying masks for the world at large. More music and more movement and more modes of transport. Vague symbols and a drawing made by the girl that wrote the letter about an impossible situation from which she ran – first via art and then via reality. I can’t remember her name right now, but I’d like to think that I’d be sure to recognize her face. We’re all zebras: viciously independent and far away from here, with mountains to climb, waters to paddle, jumps to nail on skateboards, snowboards, and dirt-bikes. More cars, a microphone, Eminem’s bad grammar, and a Killer Vibes eyeball, disembodied. Trans flag and pride flag and, oh yeah, that obligatory U.S. flag too. I said no to the Confederate flag. Anarchy and dream-catchers, foods and landscapes, a heart with birds flying from it, a mind bordering enlightenment and the woods. I can’t do it. I can do it. Life’s a lottery and the moon pushes and pulls us with the jellyfish and the sea.

         And to end this series of symbolic walls – the meanings of which, as previously implied, you’ll have to fill in for yourself –, another unfamiliar, shirtless man punching another unfamiliar, shirtless man, contorted faces, anger encased, et al.

         Phew! Now that that is done, I promise to laugh more often and more heartily at the absurdity of us from now on.