Essentials of Living: Scott Thomas Outlar

Scott Thomas Outlar

Lizard Crown

Are you, in fact, aliens hatched from a decadent star system where the adaptation of parasitic qualities led you to evolve in a heinously warped fashion before setting forth across the galactic divide to hunt down another species that could be placed under your bloodthirsty spell?

Are you demon swine spawned in the pits of hell, reared by the ghosts of Josef Mengele and Adolf Hitler, and then let loose as zombie avatars to continue carrying out their eugenics plan while plaguing us here on earth?

Are you the reincarnated spirits of Aztec priests returning to sacrifice more children during another round of carnage like you did atop the pyramids in ages past?

Or are you just a gaggle of completely psychopathic lunatics dead set on projecting the unresolved inner trauma you suffer from within as a poisonous outward assault against anyone you can manage to lord over with your petty authoritarian edicts?

Are you perverts? Are you sadomasochists? Are you card-carrying members of a nihilistic death cult?

Are you itching for a fight?

Are you jaded criminals who actually want nothing more than to be stopped and brought to justice and so are acting out like spoiled brats in an unhinged manner while desperately longing to receive punishment?

Are you truly prepared for the rubber band effect coming your way?

Are you ready for reciprocation once karma is unleashed?

Are you familiar with the sensation of how a rope feels pressed against your neck?

…

Morally degenerate control freaks who use spells of persuasion to whip up collective hysteria while implementing every trick in the book to sow seeds of division amongst the people they wish to conquer have no authority over me. Nor you, unless you’re into that sort of kink. But I’d strongly advise against such thrill-seeking because that type of fetish will never get you off in the end; you’ll just wind up in a cage or a grave. So, declare your autonomy and practice celibacy when it comes to screwing around with authoritarians.

…

And all your days are numbered, the same as mine; but neither of ours shall be as short as theirs. Because karma loves the truth as much as God.

And woe be to those who would lead the flock astray, for the wool they pull over others’ eyes shall be multiplied in their own reciprocity of darkness.

And fanatical fascists may flap their tyrannical traps for all their hours upon the earth, but it is surely a sign that reveals the tale of their own weakness; for those who run their mouth with the spew of authoritarianism concede the fact that they lack self-control and are forever lost to fits of chaos.

…

Of course the Beast System is to be resisted and opposed at all costs. That’s perfectly obvious. It’s the entire reason for being here at this particular point in time. A test of spiritual discernment. A great blessing and responsibility, really. An opportunity to be thankful for. 

The system has already begun the process of cannibalizing itself, thus the thrashing and wailing of its death throes are being experienced. The outburst causes an awful lot of commotion, but signifies naught but weakness and the eventual failure and fall of a pathological agenda. That which is evil carries within itself the seed of its own destruction.

It is for us to simply step out of the way and let the chaos they have wrought lead not to the faux sense of order they seek to impose, but, rather, to that which naturally arises for us as a new paradigm emerges. In the aftermath. Dancing upon ashes.

…

But they will cower from that which offers freedom and cling instead to a consciousness persuaded by fear.

And woe be should that poison settle in your stomach gradually over time; better you should spit it out and shun that which works through cancerous transgressions.

Yet some would hate the truth with all their hearts, and they would spend all their days staring through the distorted lens of inversion, and they would bathe in the filth of their own ignorance with mud caked thick in their eyes..

And they would revel all the while in their folly and cast dispersions at those who sought to help them come clean.

But all their false bravado will fail them in the end, for it is written that even the most detached, apathetic, hip to the bone attitude will wither under the light of the sun’s judgment.

…

But what matter if they cast their lots with the thieves or turn their minds over to deception? For yours is a narrower path to travel. What do you want, a cookie?

And all your good deeds and stains of sin will be piled on the same scale in the end, so bend your actions toward that which is righteous and leave the consideration of such measures to higher forces.

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Bio:

Scott Thomas Outlar lives and writes in the suburbs outside of Atlanta, Georgia. His work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. He guest-edited the Hope Anthology of Poetry from CultureCult Press as well as the 2019, 2020, and 2021 Western Voices editions of Setu Mag. He has been a weekly contributor at Dissident Voice for the past seven years. Selections of his poetry have been translated into Afrikaans, Albanian, Azerbaijani, Bengali, Dutch, French, Hindi, Italian, Kurdish, Malayalam, Persian, Serbian, and Spanish. His seventh book, Evermore, was written along with coauthor Mihaela Melnic and released in 2021. More about Outlar's work can be found at 17Numa.com.

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Setu, January 2021