I am the ego. I am vanity. I am the artist having the gall to think that what I have to express means anything to anyone outside of myself. I am a voice dying in the "mass of quiet desperation". I am throwing pennies into the world's fountain. I am lust. I am desire. I am withdrawn. I want to drag you down with me because I don't want to be alone but that does not stop me from hating you. I am ambivalence. I am disgust. I am meaningless. This is an excercise in futility. This is youth--devouring wisdom. I will have to start over. This is not beat poetry, the beats were defeated from their inception. This is something different, something cyclical. This is a contradiction in terms. This is loneliness, because that is what I am--loneliness. I want to live so that I can create, so that I can knock on your door to let you know that I am alive because I feel meaningless in this isolation. My days are spent in a darkroom, where are your's spent? Do you see humans? All I see are ghosts. Don't pity me, because you are probably one of them. The drinks climbed right on top of me and now there is no escape. I have so much to say, but does it mean anything? Should I go to sleep? Should I fall unconscious? Should I keep going? Does your opinion matter? Can you affect me? Do I care? Do I have control? Am I as powerful as I feel? I have no one to talk to but the voices in my head! I'm not trying to be witty. I am conscious of you . . . to the possibility that you may be reading--that you may be listening, but you can never cure me because I have too much to say. Whether or not what I have to say means anything is irrelevant what is important is that it sees daylight.