A Brief Escape

I lost my grip, the pace of the world around me drastically lost its motion and my eye lids half drawn, the back of my neck tightened with a sudden cold drop of sweat, heart dissolved into my stomach and suddenly every muscle in my body clenched and I dropped my hands to brace myself as the solid ground pulled me towards it.

I had lost the grip on life, I remember it it as a grey-scape everything had a brilliant silver reflection from where the fiery red sun, of the earliest hour of morning started to simmer above a frozen land, outlining the clouds. On my phone the time was 4 am, cold breaths accompanying my insomnia. A life with no motion, inescapable.

I was staring into the distance, the glass still cold as the sun illuminated the sky and the frozen snow reflected the light through my window. I had been locked in for what felt like an eternity. Life had been stretched on a clock and every measure of time brushed off, disorientating the reliance on time.

It felt like I wasn’t eager to pull away from life, but I had needed up in a pit of despair where everything felt static. It reminded me of my days at home, some years ago when I was confined to a room but now here again I had to go through it all over. I had lost my will the same way I did back then but this time the uneasy, anxious mind didn’t lay to rest, day and nights, melted into a fiery embrace. Bad break-up, a shake up, things to cope and too little hope. I felt it all and yet life felt like a frozen frame.

The COVID-19 had just begun its strain over humanity, around the same times friends were moving to different stages in life, we were wishing our goodbyes to everyone, seeing those that surrounds me in friendship had to move into there own sureities, when the world itself was unsure of its future . I never thought that life could transform in such an instant. I had some conception of it but it seemed like a far cry that the road will not vibrate and the streets of enterprise would draw their curtains. But life happened to take its toll, the stagnation hit the surface quietly but went far deep.

I had broken up and I was still dealing with the impact of it while locked up, the walls felt too close at times the corners too far. However, much to my surprise, friends would briefly bring some vibrance into the otherwise hollow spaces that life was confined to.

Although the sound and rhythm of music took me into its lure and opened a world of discovery. We would put beats on and rap our hearts out, freestyle to what we can scribble and jot as the other tried to take a shot. I had. found solace in building from the inside. The life kept its stagnant stance for a long time. Just as it would seem like it was the end of this siege. The change yet again would be short lived. The unreliability of the future dawned onto my chest as anxiously trembleing and sweat in my plams, the profusely showed the sypotoon of dread, sinking heavy breaths, legs in a constant spin like untied ropes, I hit the ground.

I think the first time any resolution came was when I wrote so I kept writing, filling pages with words that took my attention, it became my meditation. I was trying to be present, as the nerves would hit and clenched fits of frustration while I emptied my mind. The impact was inevitable but the silence brought peace.

Loneliness became solitude, it felt like the right time to dive in and find my voice. My need to make rap and write poetry and prose propelled me to not give up writing, I have always been attached deeply to music, to words and to my flow, to my rhythm. So it made sense that rhythm came first at times and stories came after.

The globe was a giant fishbowl, now with still waters, we are drowned in oxygen, just like the fish of the sea are drowned in water. So I saw the merit of having the spirit of a predator of the sea, freezing cold waters of isolation wouldn’t freeze my eyes to the delicacy of muse. Each step made a difference as if I felt the bottom of the ocean while testing new waters. My life seemed to have a courageous outlook like a hammerhead, heading into an unbound journey with no conception of the end. Then again this was my chance to chase that electric dream that made me want to plug into my voice and feel it bite through my bones.

Countless times when I felt alone my words came to rescue me. All I ever got were words, words of wisdom, words of joy, words of sorrow, words of compassion and words of regret. I fell in love with words. I wrote to the sound of music just as much as I wrote to the sound of my heart whichever ambience it may have been. My life had also become that loner where my art had become my peer. I was a reflection of my world and those I had come close to. Yet again I was also by myself, under a single street light, looking far out to those that were confined into their own space, out of sheer confusion of the darkness that surrounded us.

I seemed to have these thoughts forever slamming on the shore of my temple of thought. While out there in the great wide ocean, a solitary-stillness had diluted into the wave of life, a stillness akin to that of a lake on a windless day. People kept drifting apart, further away, each time, each day. Only the words went beyond the silence, words were my embrace and my dreams built the words I always wanted to let out. The cold and dark winter storm of loneliness hit at a steadfast pace. I went out of control then gained it back. I had a monologue turned dialogue between me and my words we spoke, told tales, shared memories and built ideas. Abstracting the world with each word the fit the tone of life. This became my escape, an escape worth engulfing into. Not just for me but for those who needed to escape reality. I was in a boundless sea of words and just deep enough I could built a world in that silence even though the surface was a violent and fearsome sea and the deep ocean darkness bubbling up my regrets. I lived in the sliver of life in between those extremes. I lived in the silver-dutch reflection covered the skies and where hope, seemed real. I thought just a few more days or weeks. I knew I could make it through. I knew I won’t but I felt like I would. I hope I do.