There are two itchy welts on the back of my neck. I've either caught the passing fancy of a vampire, or my cat has fleas. (Or maybe it's a little of both) Each time I move, my collar rubs against them, causing tiny flares of uncomfortability.
All I want to do is not be me right now. I like me, I just need a break from me. I'm hoping this Yosemite trip will help me step back, remember that there's life outside my bubble, and that I'm just stuck in the orbit of something greater, something that's hurling me along through space and time, across the infinite nothing, hop-scotching between dark matter and radio waves, with the rest of the puppets. But now, I'm caught up in the pain between my ears and the fire on my neck and the rumble in my belly and the sound that the vents make, and the tapping of fingers against keys, and the ubiquitous banality of the words we use to breach each other's bubbles, but the joke's on us because the bubbles don't breach. They just ooze and wiggle, and bounce our words back in our faces, to echo and slap and taunt the parts we think are well-adjusted. I don't look in the mirror to see me. I look to see the me I want to be, not the me the way that others see me. And what's real? What's the point? It's all filtered and colored, no one sees the same thing without adding all this experience and truth and expectation, you can't just see a thing and communicate the essence of it because there's no such thing as purity. Purity conflicts with the baggage we carry. And now they say we're strings underneath. I think we're webs. Webs in bubbles. And somehow we've each got to figure out how to pop those bubbles and hold on. Cuz when it pops, like a child's balloon, it'll mean a rush of air and saliva and rubber and it'll smell just like the latex gloves in a sink full of dishwater and dirty plates, that I've got to wash tonight, for some reason I forget.
No comments:
Post a Comment