We settle down,
Get fat,
buy TVs.
Skin is now
soft and pale
that used to be
dark and hard.
We take joy in showers and
painted nails,
when we used to watch clouds
and chase fireflies.
We domesticate animals,
dress them up in funny clothing.
I used to save birds fallen from
their nests, but now it seems
I've fallen from mine.
We puff cigarettes for as long as
our lungs can hold.
We used to hold our breath and count as
high as we could to
show off, impress, joke.
Snow stretching into the horizon was a
magical kingdom, transformed to light
before our eyes.
Snow is now an annoyance, a meager attempt by
the Earth to slow us down, stop us dead
in our tracks.
We grow up to live
to watch someone else grow up
to live.
We grow up to care
to help someone else grow up by
caring.
We drive around in SUV's,
We drive around on roads of wax,
Not caring, not thinking,
Just going forward to
who knows where.
The sun shines brightly on a freshly formed patch of dirt, slowing tires, irreversible havoc on a dust top side stream alley. Spinning wheels show gold and red in the glow of tilted light. Our friends are silent, our friends are tame, our friends are not the same as us. We forget in time that it's all a bowl of spaghetti- a simple mash up of basic flavors, a hint of exotic herbs, but mostly just thick, dull substance. It's not a race, just wait while water boils and then you're done. Patchwork compass pointing always north, until you get there and what is next. It is ice and plastic and dim lighting.
One step after another, leading us forward but really just far from where we were.
Apologies for my disgust, it seems the tides have gotten the better of me. But when the sun goes down and moon goes up and nothing is left but the darkness of our solitude, the blight of our purposelessness, it is hard to ignore the impending nothingness that awaits.
Gib jab, blib blab, what does nothingness matter? This is what we have to experience. This is what we have to live. This is our only chance. Why argue, why stop to think, why not just run full tilt towards the wall if the wall is what we've been given?
There is beauty to be seen in a frozen tundra. I know that, I still see that. There is perfection in a cold October day, walking briskly with hands tight in pockets, crushing blood red leaves beneath boots. Fireflies still scatter on the wind, mocking us to come and take a chance. We don't have to live in one world or the other. The isolated nature dwelling child (with friends in imagination) or the isolated urban dwelling adult (with friends in appearance). These can both be part of one whole. It is crucial to me that they be compatible, because I cannot have one or the other. Life would not be sustainable without imagination and animal shapes in the clouds, just as it would not be sustainable without jobs and creature comforts.
It's burning now, the chance to see clearly, and yet the incapability to do so. That would entail a restructuring of the conscious mind. The subconscious already knows what it needs, what it would chose to see. But the conscious, adult, human mind is racked with restrictions, guidelines, masked figures we must follow. How can two beings reside in one body? In reality, there are so many beings, more than I can list. Child, adult, subconscious, conscious, depression, happiness, panic, calm, night, day, love, hate, excitement, nonchalance, arrogance, self doubt, music, math, machine, paint, clouds, earth, water, fire.... The endless possibility of countless words and feelings bubbling beneath the surface, ready and waiting to release themselves in eternal combination, be they in strife or harmony. The subconscious doesn't care if it's expression makes sense, if one combination proves disharmonious- it just wants to be released- it just wants to TRY.
A chance is all we need and that is what we can have. And not just one, but as many as we can rightfully take before our time expires. Or until we give up. Which is basically willful expiration. Why not then live a million lives in just one day? That way when the final day eventually does come, we will have lived deeper and greater; a million times a million in the span of a hundred.
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