On Piggy-back Rides

This monkey, he sits on my back. He looks a lot like me. His hands are over my ears and they point my head in the direction he wants it to look. His eyes see what I see but his fingers plug my ears. He hears everything and only reports on things he believes that I need to hear. He interprets for me all of the things that he lets me see. He whispers things to me. When I'm alone with my monkey, he convinces me of things. Things that I know cannot be true, or that I wish could be. But with his silver-tongue and soothing tone, my doubts disappear.

I have a hole at the base of my neck through which his arm fits. When his arm is inside this hole, his fingers operate my tongue like a sock puppet. At these times, I have no more control over what I say than over what colour the monkey's bare backside is (bright blue). His other hand plays my spinal chord like a harp. My limbs move around and I shake. I always change my stance and position, sitting or standing. My head bobs, my hands writhe and drop things and my feet tap sporadically. I call this dancing.

This bastard monkey is a jealous bastard monkey. He doesn't want me to meet new people or make new friends. I know that he's in charge, and he knows that I know. Occasionally he acts up and throws his toys around. Often these tantrums coincide with public speaking - such as project presentations and crit sessions - or other times when making sense is most important.

The worst thing about the jealous monkey is that he is very perceptive and quite talented at reading people. If he sees anyone with the slightest interest in me, he ties knots in my tongue and thrashes on my spinal chord like he's Marty McFly playing Johnny B. Goode in Back to the Future Part 1. Being adept at reading people, he reads me like a Johannesburger reads designer labels. When I'm speaking to a potential love interest, the degree of comparison reaches five notches above "worst". I can't pronounce words, what I do say only makes sense to me, my mouth dries up and the fish that has replaced my tongue does not go well into that dry night.

The only relief I can find is to tranquilize Percy (the monkey) with copious amounts of alcohol. He usually dozes off while scratching his monkey sack. At this point I have turned control of my personality over to Captain Morgan (who is entirely too social compared to Percy's hermit-like demeanour). This is great for the duration of the good Captain's time at the helm, but the Cap'n is a restless, irresponsible leader. He eventually wakes Percy up and sets sail on the porcelain express one way or another. It's at this point that Percy goes ape. Using broken sentences and digressing at length, he wastes no time in making me feel both paranoid and guilty at letting such a vagabond take the control and confused at the nonsense he screams into my ears while jumping around on my back and pulling at my hair.