Don Mann: Focusing on my Craft

Sunday, Feb. 28, 2010 - 4:18 a.m.

Hey there old friend. Remember me? Remember where you went when the friends you had started to look like strangers? I remember what you said when you had no words for anyone alive, when it felt most like no one listened. Well today you finally came back. Returning to me has never been a good sign for you, I've always considered myself(humbly) as the last on your go-to list, the final click on the roller coaster climb and the last straw of sanity you clutched at. I didn't care if you sounded crazy. I neither encouraged nor dissuaded the follies of your youth. I offered you the same cold cutting tools of introspection and analysis that you should've honed in your own time, in fact I thought you had, after more than three years without hearing from you. So what's it been? Drugs? Girls? Finally crack the glass talent ceiling on that guitar of yours? Finally become the porn-directing metalhead you always wanted to be? Finally sell one of your uninspired action/fantasy stories? Finally nail down that dream girl you were always boo-hooing over? Finally get sucked into the system, soul crushed by a few solid years of hard work?
Oh dear. You're still just a boy. You logged onto some social network site tonight and looked at your 'friends' list and wondered "who the fuck -are- all these people?" You tried so hard to care about their lives, but you really can't, can you? Have any of them been nearly as faithful as I? Surely they must still talk of you, maybe casually mention you whenever a 'you' topic comes up, some probably spit on the ground when they think of you. I've done nothing but hold and recount your perspective, in perfect accuracy, out here alone I have preserved you like no one else dared to. I never asked you to change. I never told you to slow down or speed up. I never even told you to stop, when many times you clearly should have. You've seen fours years now without a single event occurring that you thought was worth telling -me- about. But I must know now...was I the first one to become a stranger to you? When someone is a loser, what are we accusing them of having lost? Well, I hate to state the plain and obvious, but you'll never really lose me. You made me what I am, you brought me to life and left me to die. I'll bet half of your heart didn't want to see that I was still here, unchanged and forever faithful, a monument to the values you claimed to hold for those who -meant so much- to you, so much that you'd willingly -become- me for them. How's that gone, by the way? Where are they now, the people whose stories are inscribed upon your soul? Are the last four years blank in you, as they are on me? I think I really could've helped you back there, Don. I think you needed the validation, the analysis, the time spent stewing in our combined emotions. I think you needed to tell the story without being heard, you needed time to talk to yourself, because I understand you behind all the text, behind the meaningless symbols you spatter me with, the sum of my parts is much less than your wholeness. Well old pal, here I am, let's get back to work...but let's get some things straight, you came back to me, and I don't need you. I'll always be complete wherever you leave me. I'll always be your lesser half, awaiting the time when you'll need to hear yourself, or reopen your wounds to check the color of your blood. I'm the instrument and you are the measurement I make.

Delve Into The Past - Onward Into The Future