There is No Such Thing as a Simple Person.

Every person has a story and everyone is going somewhere. I've heard it said that one should live their life in such a way that if it were a written in a book someone would want to read it. I don't know about that. The thought of whether or not my life would be a best-seller does not particularly drive me. I believe, every man's story is worth telling and worth listen to. I've said it before that getting to know a person is one of the highest forms of entertainment; and there's a subtle truth in that. It is wonderful to learn about a person on level deeper than "Hi" and to try to understand them. Incredibly insightful. I have never been disappointed in the understanding that people should be known, and I've found that even people I may be tempted to label as 'simple' are inordinately complex. The 'why's and passed years weigh on all of us and impressed upon us their seals of maturity, denial, wisdom, and mistake. Unavoidable. Unmaskable.

We are complex because the human heart does not lend itself to being simple. Even so, the greatest minds I've ever know have striven years for simplicity--trying to attain oneness of character. Consistency. I've read of artists who spent their whole lives learning to paint like a child. They want that simplicity back, and why? It might be that as children we were the most alike. We all wanted food and mothers. To be cared for in ways didn't have to understand. In the relative simplicity of childhood, we must have been so close to each other. Now that we're grown, does that mean every man is an island? If we are, we must certainly be an archipelago because we're all connected below the surface.

Sometimes sitting in the cafeteria, I'll see someone, and for whatever reason, they will catch my mind's attention. As I eat my meal, I think about that person sitting down with their friends across the room, and I wonder where they were born, who they love, and how the events of the world led them to sit in that particular chair. Most times, wondering is enough for me, but other times it is not. I can't explain why it's not, but I feel drawn to ask that person a question. Usually, I do not ask. How strange would it be to ask a stranger who they love? I think the answer would be a long one.

I think similarly of shacks and overgrown buildings on the side of a road. I have to wonder when they were built and who built them. I think of how proud the owner must have been when he first walked into his new and beautiful building. What were his plans? I learn names about as well as a monkey learns state capitals, but do I wonder a lot.

There is no such thing as a simple person.

The Man in the Tattered Cape

I saw a man in a tattered cape
Many a time from Robin Row.
So curious he seemed to me
As none of him would show.

Every day he’d pass my way
T’wherever he would go,
Never pausing from his walk
Except on Robin Row.

And from my window sill I’d spy
Seeing whether if the wind
Would whip his tattered cowl so
That I might see if he had skin.

T’was then I let the sin begin.

For one can only see so much
From a window far away,
So I resolved a grave intent
To meet with him one day.

The very next, that is to say.

So as he paused on Robin Row
I grabbed what I might think his arm,
‘Till whooshing fabric whirled around
In twirling folds of dark alarm.

The cape and cowl seemed so deep!
As deep as I imagined from
The window I had occupied
A day ago! But thicker some.

And as I looked for eyes I found
There none to courteously fix
Mine upon. A rainy dusk
Began to fall into the mix.

“Why do you wear this tattered cape?”
I whispered him despite the rain.
“It is so worn and shorn and torn…
Though black it is, I find a stain.”

The man, he only looked at me.
“I wear this cloak for reasons three:
I hate my body, love my cape,
And it is what you’d rather see.

“But,” I said, “It looks so old!
So heavy for the summer heat!
And in the rain it’s soaking through
To make you heavy on your feet.”

But what he said he would repeat.

“But it’s so tattered—drags the ground!
It is too big for you!” I yelled.
When, in truth, I only ached
To see the darkness man un-shelled.

Again, he only looked at me.
“I wear this cloak for reason’s three:
I hate my body, love my cape,
And it is what you’d rather see.”

“But sir!” I yelled. “It must be patched!
And hemmed here where it clearly frays!
I am tailor, sir!” I lied.
“I’ll have it back in one… two days!”

My chest was in a raucous craze!

But the man, as calm as shade,
Turned his faceless hood from me,
And tugged away, and slowly walked
Toward his evening place to be.

I never thought I’d use the knife.
I did not think it’d come to that
But oily red that smeared my hand
Confirmed no wraith beneath it sat.

I swam through fabric dark as death
And shuffled through to strip the cloaked
And found a truly gruesome sight:
My own dead face. Chafed and choked.

The deepest fabric in my hand,
A silent horror for the twin
I felt until I gaped the cloak
And wrapped myself within.

I am the man in the tattered cape
I walk the darkness to and fro.
I hate my body, love my cape,
And pause to mourn on Robin Row