ICONOGRAPHY

B. McGILLICUDDY

WHAT MAKES YOU THINK THAT I'M SO BOLD!? BECAUSE I AM AN ASS!? BECAUSE I SWING MY DICK AROUND AND SAY 'LOOK AT ME LOOOK AT MEEEEEEE!'?

YOU'VE MISSED THE SIGNS! I AM BLEEDING FROM ALL MY ORIFICES! I AM CRYING TO THE WORLD, 'WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME?' LIKE CAIN, THE GARDENER, I GAVE WHAT I HAD AND GOD SAID 'SHAME!' AND I ASKED HIM WHY, AND HE ANSWERED NOT, AND I MURDERED MY BROTHER OUT OF SPITE AND ANGST, AND CRIED WHILE I WAS AT THE TASK. BUT DOES ANY OF THIS MAKE ME WRONG!? DOES ANY OF THIS JUSTIFY ME!? NO, HUMAN(I'm addressing you here)! IT MAKES ME YOU!

I am not in search of fame or fortune. I was once, a long time ago, when people in the halls of the old church building said, "look at that boy! Awww, God's got so many great things, just waiting for him! He's going to be a star one day!" And I believed them! I believed the hype! The hype coming from a bunch of disgruntled old fools! A bunch of people who turned to God in desperation and would have killed a man for a dollar in their youths! A bunch of Black and Asian and sweet old Mexicana women who watched OPRAH, 'MMM-HMMM GURLFREEEHND' they'd say. I believed THEM.

I was disappointed. I am disappointed. I learned that there are scholars and people with raw, natural talent, and people in pea coats and pipes as well as long and sturdy cigars that they smoke all day, waiting for the money in their bank account to roooooollll over into the next one not caring about God or being a star or anything but themselves! SOMEONE TOLD ME THE WORLD REVOLVED AROUND MY CREATIVITY, WHAT WAS I SUPPOSED TO BELIEVE?

I had expectations to live up to! I had people to prove right! I had an identity to find! BAAAAHHH! Humbug! I said later in an old and miserly way! I tried loving people like the Bible said God loved me and I wasn't just let down, I was stoned. I was martyred in the schoolyard for my beliefs, revered for my consistency but banished for my non-conformity. And I found myself alone. Then I called out to God and asked him what I should do? Where should I go? And I didn't get an answer, I just looked up and I saw stars.

I saw stars glittering, small and desperate in their tiny, hasty light, massive balls of heat and fire fighting their way billions of years to my eyes. And though I see them, what good does it do them? They are alone. Then i looked to the ground and I saw the concrete, the meshed and muted mold of man's desperate need to carve the Earth into something ugly, and I saw that the concrete didn't ask to be there, that it wasn't commissioned with a guarantee of reimbursement, to sit and let my feet wear it away, to let members of the community deem it unsightly and have workmen chip it to nothing and heap it where everything that doesn't matter and didn't ever matter goes. And I was afraid.

Then i looked up and straight ahead, into the eyes of another human being, and behind those eyes I saw the same plight: to be heard. To be seen. To mean something and know someone thought that they meant EVERYTHING. And I empathized with them. I could ask them what they wanted, and they could tell me. But no. They lie. People cannot not lie, because their thoughts are never fully formed. Their minds are never wholly sure of anything! 'WHAT DO YOU WANT?' says I, 'YOU' they say, and I tell the truth I think that I think and say the same to them, and instantly they run away. I then remember God and call on him in desperation, and he still does not answer. I look into the mirror and I cannot see my self. I look at all I have and I see I no longer want it. And what will become of me? What will they say? Little to nothing is the answer. I know this. Little to nothing is what I'm worth to them, even in all my faculties.

There is only one thing left to do, my mind decides: smile. Smile because no one is watching. Smile because what else is left? Smile because people will see, and will, perplexed, smile with you perhaps. And so for a moment I was emo in my head and cheery in the face and that worked out just fine. Until I saw the icons. The icons do not smile. The icons, stoic, and so unnerving, never let their teeth breach the viewer's line of sight, and I wondered why this was. And I began to scour the Earth, search for the answer: Why do these alone folk, the people, known of late, keep their goddamned mouths shut? And I realized that the answer was in my questioning. I realize how great a mystery to me it was that they should suffer in silence, and so I started being emo in my subconscious, smiling in my head, and apathizing on my face. And someone saw, and was afraid.

So this is me, SHUTTING. THE FUCK. UP.

B. McGILLICUDDY