The Premise

They say it’s all about the journey

The wandering hero discovering the nobler self

Deific feats of strength and mind,

acrobatic academics who leap until they fly,

Acts of wit, trickery or wisdom that Houdini the hopeless, last second,

Onto a golden ladder reaching to immortality.

Or

Errors in judgment that immolate,

Searing the soul in a holocaust of conscience,

Which rises again, clean phoenix,

Soaring on the wings of benevolence

Into clouds of self-righteous ecstasy,

The wisdom of experience, repackaged and

Offered to the masses selflessly,

Milk and honey dipped bread-braids on gleaming silver platters,

Or

Suffering, cruel and sustained, that grinds like glass under stone,

Like the reopened wound,

Like the acid of infection,

Like heartbreak revisited in a dream,

Like bone against bone.

 

That’s the hero’s journey. You have to come out better for having suffered through it.

 

I am not a hero.

I never learn the lesson.

Sometimes, I even forget to suffer.

Sometimes, there is no redemption, no angel glow beam heralding the end of the tunnel.

 

Still, I do love the ride.