Baby Let Me Follow You Down

What is the greatest source of inspiration?  Is it an external influence that completely absorbs your attention?  Happiness?  Agony?  Desire?

Desire.

Desire that stops you in your tracks and sends a signal through your brain.  An electrical current which provokes that fleshy matter into a spasm when it realizes something has been missing in your life.  The missing loving cup that never empties of sweet wine.  Time for a change.

New suit, toss away worn shoes.  Old vision working with a new set of eyes.  There is a wall in front of you, miles high.  You've got the gear to climb and off you go.  There is a job to do.

This is time to pull yourself clear of your skin, like your ego is hooked to a steam catapult.  Press the button and a rusty suit of armor is ripped away.  You are on your own.  The goal is driving you, the reward at the end.  Selfishness will drag you down, selfless action will propel you up that wall.

You get intoxicated with the desire.  Common sense is senseless.  Sometimes you're no longer scaling a wall, instead you are in a room without light and one way out.  The air is saturated with explosive fumes.  You fumble in the dark for the door, the door that gets you back to the job at hand.  The fumes overwhelm you, clarity begins to leave your mind and in the last instant before you lose consciousness you remember there is a Zippo in your pocket.  I can't smell the fumes anymore, maybe they've left?  So you whip out the Zippo, click open the lid and strike it.

That's the last thing you can recall.  You slowly become aware once more and to find yourself smoldering, the muse has disappeared and you have no idea what to do next.

So you bum it a bit, grapple with ideas and agonize and in the end come up with nothing except the understanding that sooner or later there will be another signal shooting through your brain.  The chase will be back on and the wall will be there again.

A different place, a different girl, a different idea, a different set of words, a different cup, different tasting wine. 

Next time you'll  remind yourself, don't strike that damn Zippo.