Let Me Brood

I sit all day brooding. If I could make a fortune out of it, I would already be a billionaire. But since I couldn't, the least I could wish is for brooding to be cool and fashionable. Yes, even without the wealth of this world, I could at least be desirable, the object of every silly girl's affection who think that because I look vulnerable I would make for a fine friend, or a sweetheart maybe. Or perhaps because they think I couldn't hurt them more than I could hurt myself. Oh, yes, I'm the handsome poster boy of loneliness on every adoring girl's bedroom walls. I'm so pretty it hurts.

I see myself in pictures brooding, in monochrome, beside the sea, with the sunset as backdrop, or wading waist-deep in a pond, in the jungle, or a stream maybe, or framed by a window of a dilapidated bus somewhere in Manchuria, or leaning against a worn-down lighthouse, perhaps contemplating the meanness of the world, or my own.

I'm lonely, and everyone sees it in my eyes. I stare far into the distance, and my eyes reflect my thoughts, some think my soul. It's an old soul they see. No, he's just a boy. What could this old soul or boy be thinking? No one knows. For no one understands. The brooding beauty is burdened, for he has to carry the weight of the ugly world.

To brood is to work. It's a difficult job. Or a mission. Brooders convey the bleakness of the ordinary. They aspire for a kinder world and hope for the kindness of strangers. They open the eyes of people, inspire them to sympathy and affection, even protection. They plea for your heart and your soul. They plea for your own salvation. So let me brood.

(Brooding beauties, from top to bottom: River Phoenix, James Dean, and Winona Ryder).