Black Straight-Jacket

Black Straight-Jacket


By Keith Kareem Williams

I walk around in a black straight-jacket that happens to be the skin that I'm in. I know that it sounds like I'm insane so please let me explain.

I tend to sit and brood. I admit that I'm prone to dark moods. They say that it's a Capricorn thing but I think there's a little bit more to it than that. It has to be and if you ask me, it has to be connected to this life I lead. I constantly have to fight for elbow room and space to be me. My constitution is constant, consistent and unchanging but contrary to what's considered sanity by many. You'd think they'd get me by now. I guess it could be said that I'm an existentialist, something like Albert Camus' "The Stranger." I think I cared today…or was it yesterday? I accept the realities of this existence but occasionally I launch my own resistance. That's when I reject everyone else's reality for my own. I desire no one else's throne because I plan to grind until I can rest my old, weary bones on my own.

I'm always considered crazy, just because I won't let life play me. I'd be a fool if I didn't pay attention and study the rules. It seems like it's become more absurd, I mean, so similar to Halloween with all these ghouls. Don't believe me? Look at the way we have to live. The pastors, teachers and the priests can't keep their hands off of our children. We hear about it happening all the time and none of us are blind. These are the people who are supposed to guide their souls and their minds. Then we wonder why our babies are crazy?

You can try to tell me that we live our lives and I'll tell you that we don't. They take it from us at every turn before we even get a chance to. The wealthy have bled the poor so dry that there's no blood left for them to get. Now they can't feed because of their own greed and it all seems like comedy to me. I laugh like a madman when I see that they're in terror because their lives are about to get slightly leaner. Most of us are still good because we've never had much anyway.

I look around and I wonder if anybody really realizes what I go through? The whole world takes a quick peek and assumes that they know you. (Even though, SHE might really know me.) What's the proper course when everything seems false? (SHE might be the truth though.) Wish I knew but in the meantime, I just try to get through. I've worked so hard for most of my life that all I have left is passion and desire. I ask you, what am I supposed to do? The cure for loneliness appears in the form of a temptress in a skin tight dress. (I know that you're thinking that Keith is a mess!) I confess that my heart yells "NO" but the drive for sex screams "YES!" I only want HER but I'm waiting for a match.

Does any of this make sense or am I really crazy? I should really try harder to fit in but disappointment has made me lazy. I refuse to take off my black straight-jacket. It kinda keeps me warm.