The Compensatory Man Par Excellence

I seldom indulge in letter writing Because I consider it To be a cold and illusory Means of communication. I will only send someone a letter If I'm certain it's going to serve A definite functional purpose, Such as that which I'm Scrupulously concocting at present Indisputably does. It's not that I incline Towards excessive premeditation; Its rather that I have to subject My thoughts and emotions To quasi-military discipline, As pandemonium is the sole alternative. I'm the compensatory man par excellence.   Deliberation, in my case, Is a means to an end, But scarcely by any means, An end in itself. This letter possesses not one, But two, designs. On one hand, its aim is edification. Besides that, I plan to include it In the literary project upon which I'm presently engaged, With your permission of course. Contrary to what you have suspected In the past, I never intend to trivialise intimacy By distilling it into art. On the contrary, I seek To apotheosise the same.   You see...I lack the necessary Emotional vitality to do justice To people and events That are precious to me; I am forced, therefore, To at a later date call On emotive reserves Contained within my unconscious In order to transform The aforesaid into literary monuments. You once said that my feelings Had been interred under six feet Of lifeless abstractions; As true as this might be, The abstractions in question Come from without Rather than within me:   My youthful spontaneity Many mistrustfully identified With self-satisfied inconsiderateness (A standard case of fallacious reasoning), And I was consequently The frequent victim Of somewhat draconic cerebrations. I tremble now In the face of hyperconsciousness. I've manufactured a mentality, Riddled with deliberation, Cankerous with irony; Still, in its fragility, Not to say, artificiality, It can, with supreme facility, Be wrenched aside to expose The touch-paper tenderness within.   With characteristic extremism, I've taken ratiocination To its very limits, But I've acquainted myself with, Nay, embraced my antagonist Only in order to more effectively throttle him. Being a survivor of the protracted passage Through the morass of nihilism, Found deep within "the hell of my inner being," I am more than qualified to say this: There is no way out Of the prison of ceaseless sophistry. There are many things I have left to say, But I shall only have begun to exist in earnest When these are far behind me, In fact, so far as to be all but imperceptible.   I long for the time When I shall have compensated to my satisfaction. I never desired intellectuality; it was thrust upon me. Everything I ever dreaded being, I've become Everything I ever desired to be, I've become. I'm the sum total of a lifetime's Fears and fantasies, Both wish-fulfillment And dread-consummation incarnate. I long for the time When I shall have compensated to my satisfaction. I never desired intellectuality; it was thrust upon me. I'm the sum total of a lifetime's Fears and fantasies, Both wish-fulfillment And dread-consummation incarnate. I'm the compensatory man par excellence.