scared. i hold in my hand the fragile life that is mine. mine indeed if only i take hold of it. some friend in the not so distant past had the facility of description: this terrifying urge in descent to some unknown disaster, the abyss of fear that takes hold in the middle of some life, he said. we no longer talk of such truths for friendship fails us now. the very fact of it adds to the burden and squashes relief. small smiles sometimes do mean more than sacred vows. that, my friend, is now dead. so. here again at a certain crossroad. always it seems, crossroads that never end.
i look on it with a kind of heaviness as a child who wishes to touch the water but fears the swim, the longing of dry comfort never releases him. so, the fear is childish, then? or mere what? a clinging to some end. my impotence an implosion with what otherwise would have been a triumphant swing. all that energy. waiting. what garbage words to express my want of sympathy for life, for the mere satisfaction of the usefulness of energy. the glorious attempt? that it? this then is the song of such abhorred sloth. true? a maladjusted crutch of a heart still longing in confusion. wanting still something deeper that was crushed not long ago, but long ago enough to forget. yes, i suppose. they say, such confusion grows in contemplation.
the difference in description foretells the difference in minds. my irrationality depicts a kind of personality not so direct and yet aims to puncture the heart of the experience. his is true in essence to the linearity of each moment with the dose of such meaningful hyperbole. a logician's poetry. mine? a clutter of words that hope for a semblance of value. a clutter of feelings that search for some category. a space in consciousness that longs for a meaningfulness. a fullness in the face of the ticking void of hours. and yet. a long list of things, of events to propel me forward awaits the touch of description in action, they will mean something the moment i point the minutes to their fulfillment. this, the accomplishment of a kind of willingness to move on. moving on. moving out. out of here to the other side of the continent. accepting. if only. the sad conclusion to the attempt of owning a kind of heart. for the first time. feeling deeply a friendship. a closeness with an admired life. no longer true. not now.
what i say is not a grand truth. the opposite, in fact. it is a glimmer. it comes then washes out in the blasted sunlight of a higher spirit. the smallness of my perception aches for a grander frame. that's what it is in the end, isn't it? minute. deep in the core a sensation of life happens, a thought, a feeling, then it tints the world a little at a time and we see everything in that bit of color. until we clean ourselves anew with someone else's description of the thing we gaze upon. sometimes this is done in cruelty. sometimes in kindness. if so, we pray for friendship. a touching of the soul if only every so often. just enough times to clean us anew, with a brand new perception, or if not, a different shape of frame. that's when the core changes. that's when life touches to teach us of a new way. the core metamorphosizes into a foreign shape. that's the birth and rebirth we hope for. a new child is born. indeed. at each juncture. sometimes in cruelty. sometimes in kindness. but always praying for a true kind of friendship.
this i am sure is not an easy read. nor is that my main concern. nor is it done to impress. it is an essay, an attempt to put words finally in place of some color. to arrange like the alphabet arranges sounds put together by the tongue. finally. the longing doesn't seem to end. or is it the air that travels in this place? if, as the woman with a crutch across the continent advised me, i were to move there, would the thought recede in the column of forgetfulness. contain it there, finally? it must be the circulating air in this place. it blows around in constant reminiscence of some fragrance, a scent of past laughter that reminds one of the same instinct to place joy in front of sadness. it is the glorious murmur of living, after all. the intoxication of a giggle. all muscles jerk in accordance to some primal urge. a cup of happiness in one sound.
if one is to regret anything it is to regret one's cruelty. i know it each time the demon in me passes. i know a part has been chipped away. if anything,( i am not sure if it be a consolation) the kindnesses of the past resurface in better shine. it doesn't erase the memory but does the opposite. memory bobs to the surface and teases us to revisit that grander time when the devil has not seized the situation and the air is pure. when laughter cleans it every so often. is it the same for you? i know that's the cause of sadness for me. every so often.
but, what is to be done? i never claimed perfection as a human being. only that i be truthful as far as what kind of an animal i am. what kind of an animal am i? the question in this regard never seem to cease. i am a conglomeration of vanity, lust, greed, ambition. only hoping to be better than those things i see; hoping to find in my thoughts a release to some better place. a kind of divinity in my attempt with other human beings who face the devil in them and be brave enough to fight it or point to the skies to watch a meteor pass by as an act of greater force, a oneness with a universe. finding at last a beauty, a kind of beauty that will sustain them and balance it all out. in this last regard i weep. i too, shamefully, weep. because those moments do exist. when the moon shone and the tides washed to shore some gift. an instrument of conversation. and beauty happened in the stories that we told watching the night sky unfold some dream of grandeur in the stars.
