Dec 2018
There is an edge that exists right before giving up. Whether from a distance of either time or space it appears as a gradual slide, it does not feel that way. Each morning is truly the beginning of a new day until it isn’t.
I feel at home in the streets. I need all that noise to block out the other voices and focus. I can’t seem to swallow unless there is a coating of dust in my throat. No matter how many people crowd into these streets there is always space between us. I never become them. With my head pointed toward the earth I begin to feel the tallness of buildings; in this position I can’t tell whether or not they truly scrape the sky.
There is a girl in my life; sort of. She wears designer skin; labels charting the paths of her life. There have been many starts and stops in her life as well as between us, or it might be another form of continuity, I don’t really know. I spend most of my days in the streets contemplating the questions she asks. Mostly they are not directed at me, they are just general questions that ignite within my mind a labyrinth of flames I follow until I cannot find my way out.
Before she leaves for work each morning I make her breakfast and watch as she covers her colors as if they are her numbers from her prison days. She always feels alone in the design office where she works, it is filled with the sculptures of “creativity” unmoved by her words; they create a vacuum out of whispers removing the air so that she cannot breathe.
Each night she arrives home to find me sitting in a fetal position, clutching my legs to my chest as if I am waiting for the glue to dry. When I re-recognize her she smiles at me, I gently remove the crust of tears from the corner of her eyes, blow it into the air and make a wish; she removes her caterpillar skin exposing the butterfly of light emanating from inside her. I spend the rest of the night reading the story of her life.
I try to decipher her markings, the symbols of all the things she felt before she was able to speak, before she met me. She chooses not speak to me; she wants to be an open book that someone passionately holds to their chest as if to remember each detail. I am trying to be that person, the one who she chooses for me to be.
The colors of her skin seem to convey something more than the ink injected into her; revealing more about who she is. They change each day so that her story changes each day and I must read her all over again.
I want to be part of her story, so I have myself branded into her skin; one part of me is colorless, just a black outline of something that once was or has yet to be fully formed, the other part of me has no lines just shades that touch each other at various places eventually blending into each other.
The next day I am back in my streets, staring at the blades of grass, contemplating the question she once asked, whether she is a particle or a wave, the answer is still uncertain.
I feel at home in the streets. I need all that noise to block out the other voices and focus. I can’t seem to swallow unless there is a coating of dust in my throat. No matter how many people crowd into these streets there is always space between us. I never become them. With my head pointed toward the earth I begin to feel the tallness of buildings; in this position I can’t tell whether or not they truly scrape the sky.
There is a girl in my life; sort of. She wears designer skin; labels charting the paths of her life. There have been many starts and stops in her life as well as between us, or it might be another form of continuity, I don’t really know. I spend most of my days in the streets contemplating the questions she asks. Mostly they are not directed at me, they are just general questions that ignite within my mind a labyrinth of flames I follow until I cannot find my way out.
Before she leaves for work each morning I make her breakfast and watch as she covers her colors as if they are her numbers from her prison days. She always feels alone in the design office where she works, it is filled with the sculptures of “creativity” unmoved by her words; they create a vacuum out of whispers removing the air so that she cannot breathe.
Each night she arrives home to find me sitting in a fetal position, clutching my legs to my chest as if I am waiting for the glue to dry. When I re-recognize her she smiles at me, I gently remove the crust of tears from the corner of her eyes, blow it into the air and make a wish; she removes her caterpillar skin exposing the butterfly of light emanating from inside her. I spend the rest of the night reading the story of her life.
I try to decipher her markings, the symbols of all the things she felt before she was able to speak, before she met me. She chooses not speak to me; she wants to be an open book that someone passionately holds to their chest as if to remember each detail. I am trying to be that person, the one who she chooses for me to be.
The colors of her skin seem to convey something more than the ink injected into her; revealing more about who she is. They change each day so that her story changes each day and I must read her all over again.
I want to be part of her story, so I have myself branded into her skin; one part of me is colorless, just a black outline of something that once was or has yet to be fully formed, the other part of me has no lines just shades that touch each other at various places eventually blending into each other.
The next day I am back in my streets, staring at the blades of grass, contemplating the question she once asked, whether she is a particle or a wave, the answer is still uncertain.
