I see you, all ragged and disheveled, trying to lead me back to the Maze with your covert machinations.  I see you, Universe, looking back at me in the mirror.  I know you; you can be so transparent and predictable.  And I can be so easy to manipulate.

For reasons which I can't possibly hope to fathom, you are decidedly determined to dispel my hard-won summer Peace, seemingly meaning to compel me to plunge into some nervous anxious exhausting murk of eternal November-dominated gloom.

Akin to an imp perched on one's shoulder, you whisper your poisoned murk into my ear...

You tell me that I should worry, that my Love's love must be based on some kind of misunderstanding, and that it's only a matter of time before she sees through the veil and is repulsed by the unformed freak that I am; you suggest that I am bound to repeat the same mistakes over and over and so should just resign myself to a life of absolute and celibate loneliness; you offer evidence of my continued submissive ways, and how I always will be the unrealized servant of others; you remind me of my weakness, of my cyclical cynicism, and of my everlasting outcast status; you incite me to consume my mood-changers in an ever-increasing quantity, pushing them at me with convincing guiles and arguments; you remind me that despite all my talk I still am making no progress on my life's work; you encourage my slightest doubts, inflating them into monsters of uneasy distrust; you predict that I am bound to remain a minor character in everyone's lives, too forgetable and nondescript to retain anyone's attention or affections for very long.

All lf this, and more, in your attempts to bring me back into the fold, among the desperate, the fragile and the sad.

It feels as if I'm halfway between the hopeful brightness of Summer and the bleak lowly emptiness of Winter.  Can I hope to hold on to my Spirits, my zeal, my Joy, my lust, my expansive gushing enthusiasm?  Was it just a short lived respite before the return of Darkness?  Or did I really gain some ground, step off the path and begin my journey to Wholeness and Fulfillment?

Time will tell, but I've got a few tricks up my sleeve.