My eyes open.
Once again, I’m reminded that I have been looking forward to missing every day for almost two years.
My face feels swollen and when I look around instinctively, the space behind my eyes ache as if I had been engaged in a vicious fight the entire time I was sleeping or as if I hadn't slept at all. All three hours spent fighting the inevitability of waking up.
It’s 3:50 a.m.
My cellphone reliably informs me of the time, date, who called while I was ignoring it the night before, and when I aught to wake up. Later, months later, it won't perform but maybe half of these functions, and not very effectively.
I know what I have to do and what my responsibility is, and they're to myself; I seek no fulfillment other than what I'm struggling to accomplish. This isn't a hedonistic nor selfish pursuit—it's what I have condemned myself to do, whether it was because I failed in the past and this is an expression of regret, or because this is my means of correcting my mistakes. Whether it's masochistic or pessimistic, I know what I must do; I painfully extract myself from the bed. I feel as if I've found a way to separately control my body and soul: by only controlling the latter, I'm forcing my way out of the first. It’s almost as if I impose the stigma of negative influence to my body as I do my life.
My comforter is so warm, so self-explanatory, and my dreams are all I have. My smiles are never real unless they're done within my subconscious, my experiences are never memorable unless they’re prerecorded and invade my mind while it's most vulnerable and show me things so beautiful that, given my life, could only be ephemeral.
As I gradually awaken, my double life is once again revealed, the sun setting on one continues to rise on the other. I'll be in attendance; I'll be walking my path toward self-fulfillment, toward self-actualization and I will actively watch the sun pretentiously rise only as a matter of course, as a formality—certainly not rising to bring warmth or an end to darkness.
No food, "good mornings", "hellos" or "have a nice days"; a shower, an mp3 player, a hoodie, and some over-worn shoes accompany my entrance into the darkness. The silence and streetlights are somehow peaceful; I always find a small measure of solace in the analogous setting.
***
I'm walking down a steep hill now and a certain curious fog has settled. The cars passing me, threatening my life as I trek alongside a road without so much as a shoulder, much less a sidewalk, are sporadic, to my relief. I'm almost numb now to the music...
...no, actually, I'm immersed in it. Saturated by the varying tones and tempos, I'm moving through an element of sound in the curiously unique way one must move through water, for example. My surroundings are irrelevant to me; the bitter cold and dull pain accompanying my hasty footsteps are in a parallel existence I'm suspending in the blissfully subconscious way one does when they sleep, for example. The air is like menthol in my nostrils and Icy-Hot in my lungs. My throat feels as if it’s coated in ice and the contrast in temperatures when I swallow against its surface is pleasant.
I swallow as often as cars pass in the rising morning traffic and I notice them equally little.
***
My body is beginning to glow with soreness, muscle fatigue harassing me, reminding me of every indiscretion I have ever committed that has inevitably ended me here.
Here.
Where am I? I realize that I hardly recall the last hour. How did I get here? Am I lost?
No, not as long as I didn't turn. I recognize that tree. That mailbox.
That traffic light. Albeit, it's unendurable slow, but I'd endure it. Gladly.
Giddily.
...I would relish it. I would stare at the light and smile my Sunday Morning Smile, softly urging it along in the way one would encourage a small child learning to ride a bike. Indeed, I’d have infinite patience in the comfort of a warm car. Sitting down. With the same music playing but with nothing attached to my ears. And in the absence of any impending danger from the many cars I encounter plowing me down and making all of this effort as relevant as a nameless bird with an unknown life in pursuit of something better than it has already had access to despite it's ability to fly, and hitting a window...
...Breaking its neck.
But if it were so dissatisfied to have sought whatever was through that window instead of taking to the skies or perching on a branch or courting a mate as they usually and as they're naturally inclined to do in the absence of humans and their transparent window panes and warm establishments... then maybe it knew exactly what it was doing when it broke it's neck.
And it didn't regret it one bit.
In light of this, I continue to walk as I'm usually and naturally inclined to do.
***
How long has it been? I'm afraid to check the time. What if I'm late? What if after all this effort, pain, and struggle, I'm late. I may not be allowed in. Perhaps I'll miss it entirely.
My footsteps have slowed; I'm exhausted. Nonetheless, I don't want to stop. I don't want to sit. None of that would be enough; I want to be under my comforter starting another day in my congruous life that's blessed to me while I, catatonic, ignore this one.
Catatonic. Doesn't that also allude to schizophrenia?
A loose grip on reality. The very grip I loosen to allow my dreams to flow convincingly, despite their utter lack of sense, pandering to my ubiquitous sensibility. Or my sensibility encountered only when I'm ubiquitous. In the mental sense.
"College driveway 500 yards."
My weary eyes, stinging and watery, crease at the edges. My day finally begins. I can only reckon with what follows.
~ P.
Once again, I’m reminded that I have been looking forward to missing every day for almost two years.
My face feels swollen and when I look around instinctively, the space behind my eyes ache as if I had been engaged in a vicious fight the entire time I was sleeping or as if I hadn't slept at all. All three hours spent fighting the inevitability of waking up.
It’s 3:50 a.m.
My cellphone reliably informs me of the time, date, who called while I was ignoring it the night before, and when I aught to wake up. Later, months later, it won't perform but maybe half of these functions, and not very effectively.
I know what I have to do and what my responsibility is, and they're to myself; I seek no fulfillment other than what I'm struggling to accomplish. This isn't a hedonistic nor selfish pursuit—it's what I have condemned myself to do, whether it was because I failed in the past and this is an expression of regret, or because this is my means of correcting my mistakes. Whether it's masochistic or pessimistic, I know what I must do; I painfully extract myself from the bed. I feel as if I've found a way to separately control my body and soul: by only controlling the latter, I'm forcing my way out of the first. It’s almost as if I impose the stigma of negative influence to my body as I do my life.
My comforter is so warm, so self-explanatory, and my dreams are all I have. My smiles are never real unless they're done within my subconscious, my experiences are never memorable unless they’re prerecorded and invade my mind while it's most vulnerable and show me things so beautiful that, given my life, could only be ephemeral.
As I gradually awaken, my double life is once again revealed, the sun setting on one continues to rise on the other. I'll be in attendance; I'll be walking my path toward self-fulfillment, toward self-actualization and I will actively watch the sun pretentiously rise only as a matter of course, as a formality—certainly not rising to bring warmth or an end to darkness.
No food, "good mornings", "hellos" or "have a nice days"; a shower, an mp3 player, a hoodie, and some over-worn shoes accompany my entrance into the darkness. The silence and streetlights are somehow peaceful; I always find a small measure of solace in the analogous setting.
***
I'm walking down a steep hill now and a certain curious fog has settled. The cars passing me, threatening my life as I trek alongside a road without so much as a shoulder, much less a sidewalk, are sporadic, to my relief. I'm almost numb now to the music...
...no, actually, I'm immersed in it. Saturated by the varying tones and tempos, I'm moving through an element of sound in the curiously unique way one must move through water, for example. My surroundings are irrelevant to me; the bitter cold and dull pain accompanying my hasty footsteps are in a parallel existence I'm suspending in the blissfully subconscious way one does when they sleep, for example. The air is like menthol in my nostrils and Icy-Hot in my lungs. My throat feels as if it’s coated in ice and the contrast in temperatures when I swallow against its surface is pleasant.
I swallow as often as cars pass in the rising morning traffic and I notice them equally little.
***
My body is beginning to glow with soreness, muscle fatigue harassing me, reminding me of every indiscretion I have ever committed that has inevitably ended me here.
Here.
Where am I? I realize that I hardly recall the last hour. How did I get here? Am I lost?
No, not as long as I didn't turn. I recognize that tree. That mailbox.
That traffic light. Albeit, it's unendurable slow, but I'd endure it. Gladly.
Giddily.
...I would relish it. I would stare at the light and smile my Sunday Morning Smile, softly urging it along in the way one would encourage a small child learning to ride a bike. Indeed, I’d have infinite patience in the comfort of a warm car. Sitting down. With the same music playing but with nothing attached to my ears. And in the absence of any impending danger from the many cars I encounter plowing me down and making all of this effort as relevant as a nameless bird with an unknown life in pursuit of something better than it has already had access to despite it's ability to fly, and hitting a window...
...Breaking its neck.
But if it were so dissatisfied to have sought whatever was through that window instead of taking to the skies or perching on a branch or courting a mate as they usually and as they're naturally inclined to do in the absence of humans and their transparent window panes and warm establishments... then maybe it knew exactly what it was doing when it broke it's neck.
And it didn't regret it one bit.
In light of this, I continue to walk as I'm usually and naturally inclined to do.
***
How long has it been? I'm afraid to check the time. What if I'm late? What if after all this effort, pain, and struggle, I'm late. I may not be allowed in. Perhaps I'll miss it entirely.
My footsteps have slowed; I'm exhausted. Nonetheless, I don't want to stop. I don't want to sit. None of that would be enough; I want to be under my comforter starting another day in my congruous life that's blessed to me while I, catatonic, ignore this one.
Catatonic. Doesn't that also allude to schizophrenia?
A loose grip on reality. The very grip I loosen to allow my dreams to flow convincingly, despite their utter lack of sense, pandering to my ubiquitous sensibility. Or my sensibility encountered only when I'm ubiquitous. In the mental sense.
"College driveway 500 yards."
My weary eyes, stinging and watery, crease at the edges. My day finally begins. I can only reckon with what follows.
~ P.
