Seemingly all at once, I burnt out and woke up. In a state of epiphanic panic there began a realization that my pipes are clogged. That my foundation is cracked; there is a hole in this heart and nothing to hide behind.
I clamber to the edge of my bed and press soles into matt. Rise to the sun. My skeleton buckles and I wipe the crust from my eyes. Desperately I step towards 88 keys, but my dresser swings open and bread like bricks crashes into me.
Why’d he run? When’d it start? How do we face it now?
As I figure I fall to the floor and see silhouettes and goodbyes. My body unwillingly collides with inanimate object. I bite my tongue – I taste blood. I try to re-group, but find that a piece of my calf has fallen off. I clench it and put it in my pocket.
“Wow, this bread is so heavy – what the fuck.”
I assess the form that knocked me off my course: elegant, unkept, ugly, perfect. This bread has seriously injured me… but there is something here… I double down and dig a hole in my backyard:
Buy the chalkboard from Masha; put $100 in the cashbox; take a deep breath before walking in and know that intuition has gotten me this far.
Cry 42 times, have several conversations with the people around me about how I’m not okay, miss you, then open a dialogue with a stranger about how I’m an asshole.
Ponder my relationship with technology – contemplate smashing my phone again but take a more mature approach this time. Instead I write this email. Instead I gather my grandmothers ashes.
—
Okay, now the hole is deep enough. There is a sufficient amount of excavated material to plant a new seed.
Gently, I remove the piece of my calf from my pocket and place it at the bottom of the pit. I stand above – surveying, feeling, and unwinding…
You broke my world. I am helpless. Waiting to be crushed in the wake. Exhaling my last breath. Body against the reef.
I slowly add the bread. Like Tata taught me, patience is key. I allow each piece an appropriate amount of time to configure itself in its new enviornment. This is an ecosystem we’re creating. A biological organism that functions according to something far more profound then I. You must be sensitive to tempo and let your senses guide you. Understand that when the hole is covered, though it will no longer be visible to the naked eye, it will eternally be there transforming, decomposing, and changing.
A marque, a barricade, an innocent bystander. A dog that stands next to me knowing that he could leave. A figure in a cavernous room seeing forgotten façade and flashlight and strikes a match against liberation.
Credits rolling, crickets chirping, fireworks almost going off but failing at the final moment. Kissing you in darkness, re-writing books in bookshelves in childhood bedroom. Release pent tension and words like I love you by accident.
Still bends and sways like echos in nightmares. It still makes sense and forgets to be rooted in anything other than this reality. It still sends bottles into oceans and he still has some dreams. He still has some dreams… He still has some dreams… He still has dreams… He still dreams… He still… still… still… still….. still.