Seeing everything as if on bleary film, speed of lightning, no depth perception, just limbs akimbo.
Life parts full of monstrous deeds and impossible beauty as if on equal footing, no judgment required.
Spiraling streams headed for passive rivers that hold the secrets of old bones and remnants of dreams.

Words and deeds flow in and out as if celebrating this moment in time. The cringe-worthy vie for space
And overtake the selfless and noteworthy, as if in competition for my soul, watching comfortably from afar.
The reel to reel trajectory is determinedly straight and on time as my body now glides back to earth.

Heavy heaving with weights on my ankles, I battle to keep moving, but it’s all in slow motion.
Used to be I could skip sprightly in every direction open to me. A spirit helpfully pushed from behind.
I could climb to high tree limbs, walk for miles, run and jump and dance with abandonment.
But now it’s as if I’m mimicking the journey through bramble and against the river’s current.

Every step, every thought, every plan seems to melt against me, keeping my body and brain still.
Sometimes the effort is so debilitating, the random thoughts so destructible, that stasis takes over.
I am the actor in a film slowed to reveal the motion of running arms and legs, music to match.
Drugs, *****, new agey solutions are no match for the all-consuming paralysis of my soul, my will.  

I want to feel as if I’ve come up for air. I want to feel as if I am of purpose and meaning in this world.
I want to wake up each morning without that brick sitting on my chest and restraints on my will.
I want to feel the steady and true motion of my body and soul, with my heart hanging on for good measure.
I want to laugh without irony, pure and full. I want to reclaim my dawn and appreciate the coming dusk.

The coordinates seemed invincible. They would forever remain constant and steadfast.
Everything worked in its favor to keep me cocooned for life, the raft on a calm sea of peace.
Tragedy was for everyone else, I could count on that. Always grateful it didn’t affect me.
Surely I was the chosen one, sympathetic but without empathy. I would always survive.

In a flash of an energetic eye, I was split apart. My soul crushed, my heart no where to be seen.
The explosion fueled my impotent rage at the gods whose impudence was in colorful display.
Trying to knit the pieces of me back together became an inscrutable puzzle impossible to solve.

Was this a lesson in humility or a neutral reaction without judgment that fractured my being?
It matters. Matter matters.  What once was will never again exist in the same form or appearance.
The pieces will fuse, melt by heat, and rearrange themselves. I look forward to that new person.

Vultures swoop in within seconds of the demise, talons already sharpened and at the ready.
Distant cousins become inconsolable over the loss of their favorite unknown uncle.

The gold and diamond ring was promised to me, said the once-removed daughter.
She always told me that I could have her flat-screen TV, the landlord told anyone who would listen.

Tears are shed at the memorial banquet, where the knives are kept in the cupboard just in case.
A dead man is worth his weight in gold. Everybody’s dream. Where there’s a will…

It’s dark now, so it must be night. That was the rule by which we all played. We were faithful to time.
We could set our clocks on what we knew to be true. We had alarms to wake us up at the right time.
Time was on our side, if you look at it that way. It was clear and honest, and unmistakable. Unequivocal.

As time has gone by, we’re losing the old goalposts. We’re benighted by the loss of what held us together.
Big Ben silently weeps for what was. Watchmakers have no more time. We’re spinning out of control.
Frenzied by no schedule, no boundaries, we bump viciously into one another in a stupefied dance.

Lovers without time, friends untested by time, no time for resolutions of peace and good will, no time at all.
Time was our truth, not yielding to whims, never fake or malicious. It existed outside the realm of deceit.
But dark forces destroyed time and bent it to their will. Will we ever have time again?

She counts them out for good measure. Only three today.
Pay no attention to the body that has no soul.
She is its ruler and ultimate destroyer. No one else.
She holds its sheer weight in her soft, repellent hands.

This morning she will measure the glass carefully.
She will be that unicorn. Barely a breath.
She is safe in the cocoon and protected like a loved child.
Slowly she turns, step by step, inch by inch.

Discipline, groaning and devouring her. So much to win.
She will win. No one can feed her soul, let alone her body.
The mirror is a sneaky mirage that defies what she knows.
She will win. She will disappear. And they’ll be sorry.

Leaning in, trying to figure out the puzzle. Its arms and legs flailing, squinched little eyes, and a yearning mouth.
What does it want from me? Have I done something irretrievably wrong? What’s the next step in this journey?
For years after,  I have embraced fear, self-recrimination, and hidden love for this otherworldly creation.

Then it’s over. A fully formed human being sits across from me laughing about something in the news.
The interval of years has softened the rough spots. I can let go, I tell myself. She lives her own life.
The horrors that I thought I had inflicted still haunt me on those sleepless nights, awakening in a panic.

In the morning now, I remember the message that she send me on a card in flowery ink: “I grew up loved.”
A Mother’s Day cliché that is my lifesaver and redemption. Lightness, forgetting, forgiving, oblivion.
Or maybe it was just all a dream to begin with. Our connections are fluid. Time playing its old tricks on me.