Shell

His legend precedes him.

An all-encompassing carapace imposed upon him come what may. In the mists of his time he learned not to pick away at it. Came to an uneasy truce with the growing shell whilst he attempted to live with himself.

Protesting the conspicuous lie of what is readily seen led to further solidification and the adding of yet more layers. Speaking out hurt. His silence in the face of lies that wound was his protection from pain. Not a shield exactly. He knew it to be a burden that he was supposed to let go of and banish. But the promise of punishment, should he do so, led him to repurpose what was available to him.

The shell is his, but it is not him. He carries it with him always. A possession that possesses, as is the way with all such burdens.

He believes he learnt to live this way when he first entered the world under his own steam. He did not. This was not learning. Instead it was a prayer that he repeatedly chanted whilst avoiding it’s meaning. The whisper of sweet nothings with the emphasis on nothingness. Pleasure in the sibilance of the words as they brushed the ear. Meaningless moments of distracting pleasure.

As a young, childish man there was something about him that spoke of an attractively dangerous sexuality. This was a stain that was too readily misinterpreted. He dwelt in a place of rumours. He intuitively knew that the rumours found less purchase were he to disregard them. All the same, he became an unobtainable sexual beast. He smiled knowingly at the ridiculousness of the mask others painted for him. He was no monk. But neither was he the animalistic Rasputin. The truth of him was quiet and mundane.

Looking upon the image that greeted him in the mirror he could never see what others saw. This a moment of peace in the turmoil of establishing himself in the world. He held faith in his growth and what he intended to become despite having no clue as to what he was doing and how he could arrive at a suitable destination that would afford him peace at last. Respite from the barrage of others’ meaning. Lies imposed upon him in a violent avoidance of living.

Years after his debut in the places of adulthood, he would encounter one of his fellow debutants and they would wax lyrical about their attraction to him back when life proper began. How they’d observed him from a distance. Lusted after him. Made of him a fantasy. A fantasy they’d held at bay to play with from afar. Too dangerous to make flesh. Women wanted him. Men wanted to be him. Acts of appropriation that stole him from himself and left him in a splendid isolation of confusion. Forced to wear the chaos of expectation and surrender the meaning of who he really was before that meaning could stick.

He would smile and encourage their confession. Taking no offence at the inference that he had now gone off and was no longer suitable for consumption. He was a product of his time grown unfashionable. The reality of him grown stronger and more dangerous than the fiction ever was.

This was how his passage through life occurred. A curious duality of existence. Unintentionally hiding behind an accidental Jekyll projection. A cursory communion between himself and this strange travelling companion of his.

There were those who saw beyond his shell and he welcomed them gradually into his inner sanctum. Then there were those who made a pretence of seeing him. In the aftermath of their incursions he would reflect upon their lies. Lies laced with baubles of truth. Mostly they told him what he wanted to hear and he grew to understand that his wanting was what they saw. They observed his hunger and gave voice to it as though they spoke the language of love.

Passing beyond the middle of his life, the shell began to chafe so that he could no longer grow . Only in this state of stinking stagnation did he question the nature of his straight-jacket’s existence. In the midst of the storm of pain inflicted upon him, he decided it was high time that he removed himself from the shadow of the tumour that was living his life for him.

The process of removal was on the face of it simple. But first he had to tear away at the self-imposed complexities he’d placed between himself and his shell. The layers of falsehood that were the cushions and pillows intended to make carrying his burden that bit easier.

As he toiled at the removal of dead tissue he came to realise that his indulgence of the rumours and his own twisting of his reputation had discretely added needless layers under the shell itself. Only now was he taking ownership of his life’s work and he wondered at what it was that he had been doing with this life of his.

This is not me!

The protest comes very late in the day. And so he whispers it only to himself. Even then, that quiet statement of truth would not be denied. Asking of him the question that must be asked of all of us.

Then who are you?

The terror of this question shattered him to pieces. And yet his shell remained intact. The question of who he was could only be answered in his painstaking removal of falsehood. He could only be revealed once the shell was gone. And then he would lay vulnerable in a predatory world.

The task of his undoing was Herculean. This the reversal of his life’s work. An epic admission of his wrongdoing. An act of colossal remorse. And as he tore at what he had made of himself, he remembered all those who had conspired with him to create the prison he’d built around who he should have been. A cloak of secrecy made from glib and tawdry lies.

Fingers bleeding. Drained of life’s energy. He clawed at himself in order to reveal the pupa within and allow it a chance at growth at last. An ugly, blind, helpless and shame-filled thing. Thrust forth into an unforgiving world. The overwhelming risk of a life beginning. But now he knew there was nothing else for it. The slow death he’d embarked upon, a travesty of the gift he was and always had been.

Digging deeper and deeper. Knowing he could not stop now that he saw the truth of himself. Seen what he must do. There was no unseeing. This was knowledge that could not be denied. There was only the pain of the destruction of the lie he’d made of himself. The blind faith that this was what he must do even as he felt he was vandalising his life support system and killing himself into the bargain. Dying in order to be reborn. Sacrificing himself. Food for the vulnerable worm that he had to believe could become the coherent beauty he felt deep within.

Breaking himself he was forced to sit with his brokenness. Accepting it and in accepting it discovering the completeness of the heart that dwelt so far inside of him it seemed an impossibility. The heart of his inner child. His eternal spark shining with an endless love.

He traversed strata after strata of dark revelation that threatened to rob him of the energy to go on. Calcified relics of a dead history that must be dug up and put to one side. Mourning the loss of what could have been and what should have been as it revealed itself little by little and bit by bit. Exhuming the corpse of possibility without a clue as to how to breathe life into it. Ignoring the verses from a false bible he’d been made to recite. An instruction manual of lies. Overriding the programming that had replaced his factory settings. Moving towards a reboot so he could start again. Only this was an act of creation not of rebirth. Writing the code with the truth he was discovering during his unrelenting labours of love.

In the final layers of his shell he came upon the beginning of his end. The construction of a shell that he’d come to believe was his birth right. Now he heard the echoes of his screams of self-blame as he neared the originating betrayal that had undone him and seduced him into a diminished way of being. The ancient rivalry of brother against brother perpetuated by another brother who should have been his father but could never bring himself to fulfil the role. Choosing instead to lay in the manger and bark at the starving. So much of what should have been but never was. This the barren landscape of his childhood.

Singled out for special treatment. Painted in a camouflage to mask the reality of him. Bastardised into a target of both fear and of anger. As he watches this classic film play out before him he sees it anew. Views it through the eyes of a survivor and of the father he deserved. The father he has become. In the safe space he has made within himself, his inner child unfurls from its foetal position and he reaches out a hand to him. Speaks the words he has yearned to hear throughout his lifetime.

You are loved.

And in the wholehearted truth of those words a connection is made within him. A connection that will never be broken. Hard as diamond. This is his strength. This was always his strength. In the vulnerability of his true self he becomes himself at last. He is a survivor. Forged in the fires of the love he has always held for those who wronged him from birth. Tempered in the love he bestowed upon those who sought him out to teach him lessons that they will never themselves learn. Made smooth by sands of childhood pain to reveal his inner beauty. He is raw in the aftermath of his rebirth but there is a peace that rains down upon him. Gently washing away all the tears he shed for the injustice of the plight of a child who only ever desired his love to be reciprocated and to be seen for who he really is.