LXI (٦١)

 My pen lies with neglect on my fall table, oddly idle. I have no explanation for this. I realize the inevitability of repetition as the summer closes into fall, dropping like a piano off a skyscraper. I would prioritize the fires if the floor were not spinning so fast. 

I can reach those things; I overtake them with a swift spin and throwing motion. One to the next. Some, two at a time. I need more, and more, and more. The sun has retracted into the six o'clock hour and makes me realize I don't treat you like I should, old Sol. 

I am over my head, suspended 3 miles above the ground, precariously balancing, holding onto a lifeline in which my entire existence and actions filed charges of denial, over and over again, much to my dismay. The captain- and that would be me- could awaken and take charge. This means I fall, you fall, we fall.

I know that this one is not for me. Not about me. So I tell myself to just get over it. There is change moving in like an autumn night storm, and this one cannot be avoided. Twinges of oblivion come, and I work hard to shake them, but something lingers, and I don't know what it is. Am I concerned? More than anyone knows.

What will I learn? I swing from tree to tree, each a different species. I'm here. I'm good. I'm there, I guess so. Truth is, I don't know much. Then again, I know more than most. And that bothers me. The oblivious walk like it does not matter. Those of us who see the chaos carry a burden everyone else just trades in for something else. What way is better?

I awaken with a burden. Nothing new. I have had to shed debris from my slumber for a quarter century now, but I swear it is heavier every day. I pull up to the table at which I meet my greatest adversary: me, each morning. Collectively, we try to navigate the haze. Lies and propaganda, manipulation, pacification, and I smile as I cook, write, and get ready, as I shovel the ash of incinerated misconception from my exit from the place where I lay semi-unconscious for the night.

“people gather round her and she finds it hard to stay alive.” 

-Another Day -Paul McCartney -1971

I don't want to. I don't want to. I don't want to, and yet I do. Real to you, real to me. Real to you, not real to me. I slingshot across the wasteland, deeply aware that it won't always be wasted. A sunrise out there is yet to come that will never set. It's hard to believe when I look around me. 

Cry baby, cry. Are you just wasting minutes with your words instead of doing things? Isn't that what got you into trouble in the first place anyway? What can you do now? If you were not afraid. I still haven't answered the girl from the spaceship. I am not sure if she is still waiting for an answer, but I sure am.

Looking for changes, looking for clues, looking for cracks in the foundation that let light come through. You know I want to lift my head off the slate floor that makes it seem like backlit LEDs are interfacing with my face, pulling my consciousness and the days of my calendar into it, devouring and laying them waste like burned carbon that used to be paper.

Am I happy? Am I sad? Does it matter? I am reaching for fragments floating in the void. My rage demands that I do my best. The clock spins, and I am beating it into submission. I feel it, though. So.

But I tell you, as I lay it all out, I have fallen down an abandoned well. I couldn't stop the fall as it began, perhaps because it was slow and incremental. I kept telling myself that on a better day, I could blast out of this hole in just a moment of brilliance.

But the officer walked up to the window as I rolled it down. He handed me a number, the next one. I knew it was coming. We tell ourselves we are no different than the rest, until we look down and realize just how terrifyingly high we are. The realization rolls in like a thick fog; I am not immune to any of this.

Like the hours and minutes of the day, after the sun disembarks from the Tropic of Cancer and begins its long, at-first-imperceptible journey to the Tropic of Capricorn, the earth beneath our feet begins to disappear. Each day we have less leverage and range. Sometimes I challenge it, futilely, of course, and other days I let it push me down.

Today, however, is the closest I will be to the sunshine. It is all what you make of it. It is all in my head. Sometimes I get tired of arguing with gravity, age, and time. I also know I cannot stop. I am not sure I ever can. Either way, I make no promisses.