Truth or Fraud (Terry)

i am a fraud. a convincing, conniving fraud.
i wake up a fraud.
i sleep and dream a fraud.
i eat as a fraud would. mashing food down my gullet with no taste or want.
i’m a fraud without a seed of omnipotent braggadocio.
i'm a damn good fraud. warding off suspicious eyes and ears to the ground.
but i think sometimes the opposite is true.



Then the fraudulent uprising of a life spent searching the wrong answer to the right question or the right answer to the wrong question crawls between my skin and sinew. it's a conundrum i'm still working out.



i am the fraud that i regularly wish would leave the world alone. it's a stone i drag behind me without end and every once in a while it overtakes me. telling the world profoundly, "you're just a fuckin' fraud, all make-up and no image in the mirror. you've got no capacity for any real emotion, for any dog emotion. your entire life has been dedicated to hiding behind the walls of big words, dubious intellect and smart ass sarcasm. it's just not anything that anyone should admire. your empty, shallow and a facade is quickly melting."



the grindstone, the gravestone is my burden. i roll it up the hill and i conquer it temporarily. then it rolls, carving devastation in its path. in some ancient Greek mythological nightmare this is my life. the unburied Sisyphus, the angry gods, the punishment of never ending up and down that contemplates which is worse – life or death.



call me Sys, a nickname, a shortened life, a fraudulent effort to act noble in the world of dread.

- Submitted by Terry