This is your life: a room filled with all the objects of memory, furniture of past and present selves and... a monkey.
When all is well, you are in your room. You keep everything in order. And you've got this little place in the corner where the monkey stays. You attend to the needs of the monkey, feed him, change his bedding, etc.. You are happy. The monkey is happy.
But there are times in your life where you become preoccupied, distracted from attending to the room of your being. Starts off innocent enough. The memories pile up on the desk. You leave ideas hanging on the furniture of your selves. Particular pieces of furniture get shoved aside. The bed stays unmade. Chairs face walls.
And the monkey doesn't get fed and attended to.
You return to the room of yourself one day, open the door and a screaming insane monkey attacks you. You take cover in the corner. Everything is turned over, torn up. The monkey has covered the walls in shit. The monkey sits there laughing his crazy monkey laugh, screaming at you, masturbating onto your mirror, taking the most delicate aspects of your self and fouling them as he stares at you. All you can do is cower in the corner until you can get out the door and escape the room of your life.
You escape from yourself. But you know the longer you stay away from the room, the crazier the monkey will be when you return. You just don't want to deal with it. You stay away. You avoid the room of your life, of who you really are. Maybe, you think, that mother fucking monkey will die. Maybe then I will go back.
But you know the Truth: the monkey never dies.
Sooner or later, you've must return to the room of your Life. You must get the monkey back into the corner. Straighten up the furniture of your selves. Get the memories in order. Clean the shit off the walls, the cum off the mirrors. You've got to make friends with the monkey again. Let it know that you are in control and that it, not you, belongs in the corner.
Where I am: back in the room, sitting in a chair holding a huge knife. I am calm now. But it still feels like I have just finished a marathon. I am up, alert, weary. Sitting here with the knife watching the monkey in the corner. And he's acting all nonchalant and casual, grooming himself and pointedly ignoring me. But I know better than to take my eyes off him for an instant.
Every so often, he kind of glaces my way. I know what he's thinking. He's thinking: sooner or later, you are going have to sleep. You are going to get tired. You are going to forget than I'm even over here. Sooner or later, you are going to let your guard down, forget that I even exist. He is thinking: all it is going to take is just one second where you nod, look down, get distracted, and then I will fucking eat you alive.
But what the monkey doesn't know is that I have gotten wise to his ways. What the monkey doesn't know is that I found a way to fasten a little bell to his tail.
Where I am: sitting here, typing these words now, waiting, and knowing that it will happen, waiting for that first little ring of the bell, that little "ding" when he starts to sneak up on me, waiting by writing constantly, ready to write more, waiting for the monkey to attack so that I can begin cutting him apart, take off a leg or an arm, teach him a lesson, make sure he never leaves that corner again. Me and my monkey are going to get along just fine from now on.
***
You know what the Monkey represents, don't you?