Journey

Enter the absence of self, collapse into the black hole, surrounded by shadowy shrapnel's of history, unrecognizable. Cones and rods for color and depth, the light and darkness morphing reality into illusion, collapsing into feeling, then confusing words, followed by silence. Tiny words, tiny grains, tiny human in the world of things.

All is uncertain until the reflection settles in, which dawns on me approaching a century later. At times, the truth is more unbelievable than the plausible deception I wish I could have back, how long I believed I would live forever. My body may go like time, grains of sand that pour incapable of stopping, but my soul remains capable of love. I won the game called life with an indomitable spirit. I do recall some close calls though, let the recollection begin.

I admire the container information enters into, the way it's recalled, there is no singular truth, all beliefs exist and are personally honest. Look in the mirror, the power that resides in the holes in my face, which both love and hate exit from. The mouth wants 10,000 spoons, but the eyes demand a knife. The source of all human err reaps in silence, and regrets once it’s sewn. The spine, the arteries, the voice, the importance of the head as a shell for the brain, the body, all the bits seem so insignificant when you realize it’s connected by a helpless little neck.

I keep my mouth closed and my eyes and I’m through the funnel. I’m standing in the open air of nothingness. I almost miss the feeling of being coveted, even if only for a moment. Even if, the pleasure only lasted two seconds. Something about it was so intense that I am always able to shut my eyes and feel it again, even as I stand on the edge of the abyss that love is. My soul will miss the beat of my own heart. Love is invigorating to run from, and boy have I run from it. Some were smart enough to stop chasing and hold a hand out, but quickly the hand held out becomes lust. I’m caught but released instead, like a fish, so I run faster, farther, avoiding all shiny objects, especially the sparkle in the devil’s eye. I glance in the mirror to check my own, twinkle, twinkle, little morning star.

I’ve missed the feeling of insignificance. The big area makes me feel small and I become what I think, as I shrink my grip slips and I fall to the bottom, through a hole invisible to the naked eye. Down through my lung I fall and into the gut of visceral fat, all of the things I’ve done in excess and stored. Starved in ways, gluttonous in others, and almost entirely giving up on “others”, and I am reckless because I choose to be naive, believing what I’d like to, broken, and experiencing lesson after lesson.

I fall like a puppet, except I know I’m doing it. Crumbling like a nutcracker tied together by bungees, falling to a pile when the button underneath me is pushed, and only I can push it. Beneath the skin, just to the left of my spine, on top of my lung and below the rib. I’m having trouble catching my footing on the trampoline when suddenly the bass drops. WHOOSH! Tossed around the tortured chambers of my bleeding heart.

One section fills and I am submerged, then empties and all but me goes along, I take a deep breath and hold it, it’s filling up again, and I gasp and shoot through the artery, with no where to go, because I’m already in too deep. Down here it’s dark, everything is moving and it’s frightening to feel, and I feel ridiculous for ever feeling scared when I could see, my eyes lie to me. Nothing is still in the heart, but I see a rhythm now and I follow it, escaping at once from the dark and flowing down the long, long road of trash and debris of things I can’t digest. I forgot about you, I forgot about pain, I forgot the last supper I ate, but that’s not important. What matters is the wasted energy. I can’t stand to see all of the things I wasted. Although, when I think of it now, the wasted days were the best part.

The shape of the forest of my body is flattened and I become large, I feel I am the same, but I have been pulled apart with more space in between. Pieces laying on a hill blocking the suns reflection from my moon and I stand on the edge of the cliff that is me. I am not lost, even though I feel it, I’m gone, but everywhere, scattered here and there, an invisible piece of everything.

I want to reconcile the feeling, and the easiest way to do this is let go, take my soul off the leash and let him run, wild, careless and free. Under a dark sky sanctuary on a moonless night chilled on the edge of a life well lived approaching the age of the end, I sit in peace with no mind. Engulfed in the desert's parched silence, I was nothing but another grain of sand in the wind.