Aug 2010
Breathe in.
Bob sings “Don’t think twice, it’s alright.”
Breathe out.
Is it? I’ll surely thing more than twice, I can’t let anything go without thinking of it at least thirty-seven times. But times are a-changing. I can’t keep up, I never can, I’m always one step behind, discovering things just as they become obsolete. I try to run to catch up, to fit, but fail and watch as the bus I’ve repeatedly missed flies by. That’s when I see him. He doesn’t care about the bus, or the discoveries, he just sits in the gravel at the station, pen in hand.
Breathe in.
He has no use for buses, or planes, or cars, or trains, he has feet.
He doesn’t need people, he has solitude.
He doesn’t need roots, he has a nomad mind.
Breathe out.
I approach, looking right, left, walking quickly across the black top that separated us.
He glances up at my shoes grinding into gravel. I sit next to him, looking straight ahead. He breaks the silence.
Breath in.
“Hello.”
Breathe out.
“Hello.”
He looks my way, glasses glaring in the sun, takes in my brown curls, green eyes, my despairing mind. “Here,” He says, “write. It makes it all go away.”
Forget about breathing.
He hands me an empty notebook and a pen. I think back, think hard, wonder where to start. The beginning seems the most simple. I pull one from my mind, one beginning of many.
And write. Write, write, write, write, until everything falls away.
Until I’m lost in me.
I write of Heartbreak, of Fear, of Love, of Death, of Lies, of Me, of Him, of Them, of Parents, of Pasts.
Then I start on my new beginning, I’ve caught up with me, now. Like Peter finally catching his shadow.
I’m free of the maze that held my mind, caged my soul. That sewed my lips, filled my ears. I look left. Smile. He’s waiting, patiently. I hand him the book, some pages stained with tears, other with laughter. He opens, begins reading, I lay back, thinking of nothing. Mind free to float.
The sky enormous and blue above me. Filled with no thought, no fears, just space.
“How does it feel?” Bob asks.
Like it must have felt to discover something first. Like the first lovers must have felt. Like the lovers still feel.
Like bliss.
Bob sings “Don’t think twice, it’s alright.”
Breathe out.
Is it? I’ll surely thing more than twice, I can’t let anything go without thinking of it at least thirty-seven times. But times are a-changing. I can’t keep up, I never can, I’m always one step behind, discovering things just as they become obsolete. I try to run to catch up, to fit, but fail and watch as the bus I’ve repeatedly missed flies by. That’s when I see him. He doesn’t care about the bus, or the discoveries, he just sits in the gravel at the station, pen in hand.
Breathe in.
He has no use for buses, or planes, or cars, or trains, he has feet.
He doesn’t need people, he has solitude.
He doesn’t need roots, he has a nomad mind.
Breathe out.
I approach, looking right, left, walking quickly across the black top that separated us.
He glances up at my shoes grinding into gravel. I sit next to him, looking straight ahead. He breaks the silence.
Breath in.
“Hello.”
Breathe out.
“Hello.”
He looks my way, glasses glaring in the sun, takes in my brown curls, green eyes, my despairing mind. “Here,” He says, “write. It makes it all go away.”
Forget about breathing.
He hands me an empty notebook and a pen. I think back, think hard, wonder where to start. The beginning seems the most simple. I pull one from my mind, one beginning of many.
And write. Write, write, write, write, until everything falls away.
Until I’m lost in me.
I write of Heartbreak, of Fear, of Love, of Death, of Lies, of Me, of Him, of Them, of Parents, of Pasts.
Then I start on my new beginning, I’ve caught up with me, now. Like Peter finally catching his shadow.
I’m free of the maze that held my mind, caged my soul. That sewed my lips, filled my ears. I look left. Smile. He’s waiting, patiently. I hand him the book, some pages stained with tears, other with laughter. He opens, begins reading, I lay back, thinking of nothing. Mind free to float.
The sky enormous and blue above me. Filled with no thought, no fears, just space.
“How does it feel?” Bob asks.
Like it must have felt to discover something first. Like the first lovers must have felt. Like the lovers still feel.
Like bliss.
Copyright 2010 by Lauren E. Dow
