A misanthrope’s lament

Writing is a solitary business. But so is life, if we allow it be.

I’m neither talented nor crazy enough to be a genuine recluse, yet I find myself becoming increasingly isolated. It’s not so much that I dislike people. It’s more that I am no longer prepared to share my time with the dull and the witless. And there are so many more of them around than there are of the other kind. And yet. Being a loner comes at its own cost. Especially when mixed with dark rum and wild women.

British poet Felix Dennis sums it up rather nicely.

You cannot live as I have lived and not end up like this.

You cannot walk where I have walked denying the abyss.

Long nights of iguana joys and terror on the wheel

Will lead you to a labyrinth where Minotaurs are real.

And there’s the rub for amateurs; they act as if they care,

Too slow to cauterise a need to strip their wires bare:

You cannot dance with Dracula and wave away the kiss.

You cannot live as I have lived and not end up like this.