Climbing higher still it is necessary to pause and think on the odd or abstract steps along the narrow staircase you are on, as are all of us. In them we'll find the answers for which our longing grows with every pa**ing hour. Until then we must continue to observe. We haven't come so far to tear ourselves apart at seams that we have stitched in otherwise perfect existences. The difference between us and animals is that we are cognitive enough to choose to chew through instead of just doing or otherwise dying. Survival is no longer a priority in the eyes of how it was originally defined. Now, it is a mockery of its former self. An apparition in the mirror's image: still there but only semi-whole and floating along, drifting in and out of conscious thought. How the mighty have fallen down. Tempting the hand of fate over and over has only ever seemed to make us grow, all while holding on to the lessons learned. Thrown into colder exposures we have always warmed our souls. Like the match girl in the alcove, sheltered from the snow, we all want to be warm before we go. One by one, the matches fall with dwindling visions of a brighter future, but the glow is finally found when the whole box burns. As good may not exist without its counterpart of evil, such, I feel, is unity without the notion of division. Divided and crawling away from human nature, we find ourselves trapped in the modern age with a growing phobia of culture in these United States. How the mighty have fallen down. Wrench yourself from your sweat-drenched stance of envy and greed. Stretch your hands in any direction you please, but just don't sit there stagnating. Hope is the filthiest four letter word to the old and dying prisoner of war, so use the tools at your disposal to capture and to hold what is most real in your soul and never let it go.