Stuck

I watched as an elderly man walked on to the train in his all white track suit. His shoes, his hat, his sweats, his socks, and long beard, all white. He grabbed the hanging handle above him and continued to lightly jog walk in place as the train slowly began to make it’s way to the next station.

His body language seemed to say, “I have places to go, and people to see. There is plenty to do in this world filled with death and rebirth.”

I sit on the train thinking about a dream that I had from the night before. In the dream, I was reliving the past, trying to mend the moments that I had broken. I wondered what the older man thought about reliving the past.

Ever since my intenstines decided to stop working properly, the reality of starvation opened up in front of my eyes. The smells, the laughter, the emptiness of thought. The lack of care for the small things, such as losing a wallet or losing the mind. This reality was intoxicating. The men that stood as skeletons to take the train to work, were something to be revered. Their level of detachment was admirable. They left behind long ago, the good old fashioned notion of self- preservation.

I started to scroll on instagram. Other women my age were having babies, getting married. They looked so young in their fun night out outfits, with heels and furry tops. They all stood in a line holding the backs of one another. They looked so clueless to the world outside of their own. Oblivious to the time we were in overseas, our quiet fear of death, war, and famine was already unfolding in front of our eyes.