Four Crying Out Loud

Mujityp

F0uR, CRYInG OuT L0uD…

I’m the rumor before the headline,
the headline before the event,
the event before the witness,
the witness before consent.

Not permission.
Prediction.

I could feel the future pacing circles around the room before it arrived.

Funny how circles work.

The ring.
The crown.
The clock.
The wheel.

The same shape keeps showing up wearing different costumes.

Maybe that’s why I never trusted straight lines.

Too honest.

Life doubled back on me so many times I started reading roads the way some people read palms.

Backwards.

Forward.

Human being.
Being human.

Same letters.
Different furniture.

The thought sat down differently.

The room changed.

So did I.

Store that.

Put it in the vault beside the other impossible things.

The stuff that wasn’t supposed to happen.

The victories.

The surgeries.

The smile.

The losses.

The weird little miracle of surviving yourself.

People talk about overcoming obstacles.

Cute phrase.

Sounds athletic.

Sounds motivational.

Sounds like a poster hanging in a gym beside somebody doing something difficult while aggressively hydrated.

My version was different.

I stopped negotiating with gravity.

Started negotiating with perspective.

Best trade I ever made.

Everybody looking at the missing pieces.

I’m looking at the remaining inventory.

Assets.

Access.

Assess it.

Excess of blessings disguised as deficits.

X marks the spot.

Spot marks the X.

Crossed before I knew where the line was.

Funny.

The older I get,
the more life feels like a sentence trying to read itself.

Weather.

Whether.

Together.

The letters keep changing jackets.

The meaning keeps walking home wearing somebody else’s shoes.

I would say walk a mile in my shoes,
but that metaphor got expensive.

Let’s just say the mileage varies.

The smile does too.

Some people think confidence is loud.

I think confidence is sitting quietly while the room misunderstands you.

Knowing it’ll catch up eventually.

Like mail.

Like karma.

Like interest on a debt.

Time compounds.

Thoughts do too.

One idea becomes another.

Puddle becomes river.

River becomes ocean.

Ocean becomes weather.

Weather becomes whether.

Whether becomes choice.

Choice becomes destiny.

Now we’re back where we started.

See?

Circle.

The ring keeps ringing.

Ding.

Class in session.

Attendance mandatory.

Today’s lesson:

Nothing stays one thing for long.

Not water.

Not people.

Not pain.

Not love.

Not language.

Especially language.

Language gets bored.

It sneaks out at night.

Changes clothes.

Comes back pretending to be somebody else.

Asset becomes access.

Defeat becomes feet.

Feet become defeat.

Defeated becomes undefeated.

The sentence isn’t broken.

It’s dancing.

Pay attention.

There’s a difference.

Some people hear bars.

I hear architecture.

Hallways connecting ideas that haven’t met yet.

A door opens.

A memory walks through.

Another door opens.

A joke arrives carrying luggage.

Now they’re roommates.

Now they’re family.

Now they’re finishing each other’s sentences.

Speaking of finishing sentences…

Mine never seem interested.

Every period becomes a comma.

Every ending starts eavesdropping on another beginning.

That’s why the conversation keeps going.

Not because I don’t know where to stop.

Because stopping feels dishonest.

The river doesn’t stop being a river because somebody drew a line on a map.

The thought doesn’t stop being a thought because the page got nervous.

Keep going.

The signal is strong.

Wi-Fi.

Why fly?

Good question.

Why does a bird trust air?

Why does a seed trust dirt?

Why does a dream trust somebody reckless enough to believe it?

Faith is weird.

So am I.

The combination has produced interesting results.

Look around.

The evidence is everywhere.

A kid who used to get called crybaby.

A man who got called resilient.

A smile that learned camouflage.

A wound that became a compass.

A loss that became leverage.

A joke that became a philosophy.

The whole thing sounds made up until you realize it happened.

Then it sounds impossible.

Then eventually it sounds inevitable.

That’s how truth works.

At first it surprises you.

Later it introduces itself.

Meanwhile I’m sitting here watching the room move.

Watching confidence walk in wearing hesitation’s coat.

Watching hesitation pretend it isn’t interested.

Watching attraction disguise itself as curiosity.

That’s my favorite one.

Curiosity.

Such an innocent word.

Meanwhile it’s responsible for half the trouble in human history.

The first person who climbed a mountain was curious.

The first person who crossed an ocean was curious.

The first person who looked at somebody across a room and suddenly forgot what they were talking about?

Very curious.

Research project.

No grant funding.

Unlimited field work.

The data suggests eye contact remains undefeated.

Peer review pending.

Speaking of undefeated…

People keep hearing the wrong part.

The story isn’t that I was defeated.

The story is that defeat showed up with paperwork and still couldn’t close the deal.

Important distinction.

One changes the outcome.

The other changes the narrator.

I became both.

The character.

The witness.

The evidence.

The closing argument.

Court adjourned.

Still talking.

That’s another circle.

The gavel comes down.

The conversation gets up.

Round and round.

Like records.

Like wheels.

Like planets.

Like rings.

Like crowns.

Like clocks.

Like the shape of every lesson life keeps teaching me.

The same shape.

Different costume.

Different lighting.

Different decade.

Same lesson.

Being human.

Human being.

Forward.

Backward.

Read it either way.

The signal still comes through.

And somewhere between the puddles,
the weather,
the whether,
the assets,
the access,
the victories,
the losses,
the smile,
the crown,
the river,
the ring,
the clock,
the wheel,
and the conversation that refuses to end,

I realized something.

The goal was never finding the meaning.

The goal was becoming interesting enough to carry it.

Now pass the cake.

We’ve got a lot to celebrate.

CONTINUING THE CONVERSATION. 

KNOt KIDDING AROUND 

I think grown-ups are suspicious.

Not like bad suspicious.

Just… suspiciously grown-up.

Like everybody got the answers written down somewhere except me.

Maybe in a drawer.

Maybe in a briefcase.

Maybe under the couch cushions where all the missing stuff goes.

That’s where my crayons went.

And probably the instructions too.

Because nobody explained any of this.

One day you’re coloring.

The next day everybody wants a five-year plan.

What happened to snack time?

Seems important.

I feel like the world skipped a chapter.

Or maybe I skipped it.

Sometimes I read the same sentence twice and it becomes a different sentence.

Maybe words move when nobody’s looking.

I think they do.

Weather.

Whether.

Same haircut.

Different personality.

Human being.

Being human.

That one keeps following me around.

Like it wants something.

Maybe rent.

Everything wants something.

Plants want water.

Dogs want snacks.

Bills want money.

People want certainty.

I want to know who decided adulthood was a good idea.

That feels like something we should vote on.

The clouds look confused too.

They never stay put.

Everybody talks about finding themselves.

Where did they go?

Seems irresponsible.

If I lost myself, my mother would be furious.

Put your name on your jacket.

Put your name on your lunchbox.

Put your name on your thoughts.

Maybe that’s why I write.

Trying to make sure I don’t get left behind after recess.

Funny thing is,
the older I got,
the younger some questions became.

Why are people mean?

Why do good people hurt?

Why do bad things happen to kids?

Why does love leave?

Nobody ever answers those properly.

They just use longer words.

That’s cheating.

If the explanation needs twelve paragraphs and a flow chart,
maybe nobody understands it.

Maybe everybody’s guessing.

That would explain a lot.

The adults always look so confident.

Then I listen carefully.

Half of them are making it up as they go.

The other half are pretending they aren’t.

Meanwhile I’m over here trying to figure out why the moon follows the car.

Nobody talks about that enough.

That thing has been stalking me for decades.

Very committed.

I respect it.

The moon got loyalty.

Maybe that’s why I like circles.

The moon is a circle.

The clock is a circle.

The crown is a circle.

The ring is a circle.

The playground merry-go-round is a circle.

The conversation keeps becoming a circle.

Everything keeps coming back.

Especially thoughts.

Thoughts got boomerang energy.

You throw one away.

Three years later it crashes through your window.

Now you’re talking about it again.

Puddles are like that too.

A puddle looks tiny.

Then it rains.

Now it’s a pond.

Then a lake.

Then an ocean.

Then somehow you’re talking about your childhood.

Water is sneaky.

Memory too.

I stepped in a puddle once.

My mother got mad.

Thirty years later I stepped in a memory.

That one cost more.

Nobody warns you about emotional puddles.

There should be signs.

CAUTION:

SURFACE MAY APPEAR SHALLOW.

DEPTH UNKNOWN.

I would’ve appreciated that.

The smile fooled people too.

People saw the smile.

Thought everything was fine.

I saw the smile too.

Sometimes I believed it.

Sometimes I didn’t.

Depends what day it was.

Depends what season.

Depends whether the weather matched the whether.

See?

There it goes again.

Words switching jerseys.

Playing for both teams.

Traitors.

Beautiful little traitors.

I love them.

A word means one thing.

Then another thing.

Then a secret third thing.

Like assets.

Asset.

Assess it.

Access it.

Excess.

Success.

One little word having an identity crisis.

Relatable.

I’ve had a few myself.

Some people lose their keys.

I lost entire versions of myself.

Found different ones.

Kept walking.

Well…

Figure of speech.

You know what I mean.

Actually, that’s another weird thing.

People say “you know what I mean.”

Most of the time they have absolutely no idea if you know what they mean.

They’re just hopeful.

Language is mostly hope.

Think about it.

I make a noise with my face.

You somehow understand what happened inside my head.

That’s magic.

We’ve been doing magic this whole time.

Nobody talks about it because we’re used to it.

But if language was invented today we’d lose our minds.

“What do you mean you can transfer thoughts through air?”

Wizardry.

That’s what that is.

The first person who talked must’ve looked insane.

The second person too.

The third person started a trend.

Now look at us.

Thousands of years later.

Still making noises.

Still hoping.

Still misunderstanding each other.

Still trying.

That’s my favorite part.

The trying.

Because trying means the story isn’t over.

The kid isn’t gone.

The adult isn’t finished.

The question still matters.

The answer is still growing.

Roots first.

Fruit later.

Everybody wants fruit.

Nobody wants roots.

Roots are underground.

Roots take forever.

Roots don’t get applause.

But neither do foundations.

Until something survives a storm.

Then everybody suddenly becomes interested.

Funny how that works.

People love results.

Life loves process.

I got introduced to both.

One was louder.

One was smarter.

Guess which one stayed.

Hint:

It wasn’t the applause.

It was the lesson hiding behind it.

The one sitting quietly in the back of the classroom.

The one raising its hand when nobody else wanted to answer.

The one saying:

“Excuse me…

But if defeat is where the feet used to be…

And undefeated means I kept going anyway…

Then maybe the score isn’t what everybody thinks it is.”

The room got quiet.

The kid got confused.

The adult got confused too.

Honestly?

I think we’re still confused.

Just better dressed.

And somehow that’s comforting.

Because maybe the goal was never certainty.

Maybe the goal was curiosity.

Maybe the goal was keeping enough wonder alive to ask ridiculous questions.

Questions like:

Why does the moon follow the car?

Why do puddles become oceans?

Why do words keep changing costumes?

Why does a smile hide so much?

Why does a scar teach so much?

Why does loss introduce itself as an ending and then quietly become a beginning?

I don’t know.

But I’m still asking.

And for the first time in a long time…

I think that might be the answer.

THE MIRRORS in the ORANGE CHAIR

Wait.

I think I know him.

Not know him know him.

But know him like when a song comes on
and you don’t remember the name
but somehow know every word.

I think the grown-up is cheating.

Not bad cheating.

Just grown-up cheating.

The kind where you use bigger words
for things I already figured out.

He says perspective.

I say looking again.

He says resilience.

I say getting back up.

He says transformation.

I say caterpillar stuff.

Same answer.

Different lunchbox.

I’ve been watching him.

He thinks I don’t notice.

But I do.

Every time he says philosophy,
I hear curiosity wearing a necktie.

Every time he says identity,
I hear a kid looking for his backpack.

Every time he says healing,
I hear somebody finally telling the truth.

Funny.

The longer he talks,
the younger he sounds.

The longer I listen,
the older I feel.

Maybe that’s the trick.

Maybe age isn’t a ladder.

Maybe it’s a conversation.

Maybe the forty-year-old
and the four-year-old
have been passing notes the whole time.

That would explain a lot.

Especially the puddles.

The puddles never made sense.

I stepped in one.

He wrote three chapters.

Seems excessive.

Then again,

he turned a smile into a disguise,

a scar into a teacher,

and a setback into a compass.

Maybe puddles were never puddles.

Maybe they were practice.

Little oceans.

Training wheels for depth.

The moon still follows the car.

By the way.

Nobody answered that.

Everybody heard the big questions.

Nobody answered the important one.

Suspicious.

Very suspicious.

The moon got loyalty.

The smile got mileage.

The weather got opinions.

The whether got options.

And the words keep changing clothes.

I told you.

Nobody listened.

Then the grown-up said the same thing
using four more syllables
and suddenly everybody clapped.

I’ve got notes.

Not angry notes.

Just observations.

Adults love observations.

Makes complaints sound smarter.

Observation:

Everybody wants fruit.

Nobody wants roots.

I said that years ago.

Nobody listened.

Now he says it.

People nod thoughtfully.

Interesting.

Observation:

People keep looking at what left.

I keep looking at what stayed.

Observation:

The missing pieces get all the attention.

The remaining pieces do all the work.

Observation:

Defeat sounds different
when you stop measuring it by the scoreboard.

That one took me awhile.

Because the scoreboard is loud.

The mirror isn’t.

The mirror whispers.

Sometimes that’s annoying.

You ever notice mirrors never start conversations?

They just wait.

Very passive-aggressive.

The grown-up spends a lot of time there.

Looking.

Thinking.

Re-thinking.

Overthinking.

Thinking about overthinking.

Then he tells everybody
he doesn’t overthink.

That’s hilarious.

I like him.

He’s weird.

I’m weird too.

Probably related.

The funniest part is

he thinks he’s carrying me.

He thinks I’m the memory.

The origin story.

The childhood chapter.

The beginning.

Nope.

I’m carrying him.

I’ve been carrying him the whole time.

Every question he asks,

I asked first.

Every scar he studies,

I felt first.

Every lesson he teaches,

I paid tuition for.

The philosopher isn’t separate from the kid.

The philosopher is what happens

when the kid refuses to stop asking why.

That’s all.

Nothing magical.

Just stubborn curiosity

that survived long enough

to get a vocabulary.

The same curiosity that stared at puddles.

The same curiosity that chased the moon.

The same curiosity that sat in an orange chair

with legs swinging above the floor

wondering why everything felt bigger than it looked.

The room.

The adults.

The silence.

The future.

Everything.

Funny thing is,

it still does.

The room is bigger now.

The questions are bigger now.

The stakes are bigger now.

But the feeling?

Same feeling.

Different furniture.

Human being.

Being human.

Forward.

Backward.

Same hallway.

Different direction.

I think that’s why the smile survived.

Not because it was armor.

Not because it was camouflage.

Not because it fooled people.

Because it kept making room.

Room for the joke.

Room for the scar.

Room for the question.

Room for the answer.

Room for the version of me
that didn’t exist yet.

And room for the version
that never left.

The kid.

The grown-up.

The witness.

The evidence.

The question.

The answer.

The root.

The fruit.

The puddle.

The ocean.

The weather.

The whether.

The feet.

The defeat.

The undefeated.

Same story.

Different distance.

Then the grown-up looked at me.

I looked at him.

Neither one of us said anything.

We didn’t have to.

We were both finally reading
the same sentence.

And for the first time,

it didn’t matter

whether you read it forward

or backward.

It meant the same thing.

The smile wasn’t hiding me.

It was introducing us.

The kid.

The man.

The question.

The answer.

The root.

The fruit.

The puddle.

The ocean.

The weather.

The whether.

The feet.

The defeat.

The undefeated.

Same story.

Different distance.

Different furniture.

Human being.

Being human.

The moon still follows the car.

The river still follows the rain.

The thought still follows the question.

And me?

I’m still sitting in the orange chair.

Legs swinging.

Watching the room.

Waiting for somebody to explain

why circles keep showing up everywhere.

The ring.

The crown.

The wheel.

The clock.

The puddle.

The planet.

The smile.

Then I laughed.

Because I finally understood.

Nothing was coming back around.

It never left.

The cake was always in the oven.

The answer was always in the question.

The grown-up was always in the kid.

The kid was always in the grown-up.

And the conversation?

Still going.

• Mujahid