Category: Series Two

Moments pass
Never to last
He spoke so beautifully

Life’s dreams clash
Future from past
She thought so restlessly

Closing eyes
Hoping to die
Or just to catch some sleep

Close your eyes
And say goodbye
For all my friends to weep

“Moments pass, never to last,” he spoke so beautifully. He says the words, never knowing what they mean. He sensed his cleverness when he stated them, not realizing his eloquence was at best poor poetry. He sat in his local coffee shop, the third one down the street, next to one, two, three breweries. Listening to his newest favorite podcast, waiting to feel complete looking above his laptop, staring off into the distance, taking a break from typing. He readjusted his sight to the half-full ceramic mug sitting on the left side of his desk, which posed as a table. The delicately crafted dark brown stains on the light brown mug reflected against the screen, which was clear save for a blank white page. No words were actually written, only spoken, and so the document remained empty like the soon-to-be cup of coffee. Eventually it would have words. Eventually it did. And, after a paragraph, he realized he had said nothing, and was waiting to feel complete. It didn’t matter, though:

He could have everything he ever wanted and still have nothing, without a peace internal, everlasting.

“Life’s dreams clash, future from past,” she thought so restlessly. She thought these words, trapped in sheets, paralyzed by endless opportunity. Her body hadn’t acclimated to the time change, and she felt like life was continuing to go on all around her, an hour earlier. Maybe that’s the reason she couldn’t trick her mind into shutting off. Maybe. If only she didn’t have to trick it; if only it complied without coercion. She remembered one her ex boyfriends whose mind would shut off the second his head hit the pillow. Well, it was probably already shut off most of the time. She tossed. She turned. She dwelled on her past and she planned her future. 10 o’clock. 11 o’clock. 12 o’clock, nothing. She wasn’t one step closer to being enlightened but rather her room was. Hell, she couldn’t tell if she was on the right path to enlightenment in the darkness that surrounded her. By now, her eyes had adjusted, though, but it was still too dark to see what company she should work for, what city she should move to, what life she should lead, or who she should be. There was just nothing there but endless opportunity. What a first world problem. What a bad person. She’d call it sleep paralysis if she could catch some. There was certainly a demon lurking in the corner, she figured. She dwelled on memories no one but her remembered. And she planned. She was a planner. She planned where she’d work and move and live in six months. And she made equally opposite and opposing plans the next day. The same for who would be her next boyfriend. Or what would be the next step on the path, or where the path even lay. She was a planner, and it wasn’t due to her not wanting to live in the moment because of her unhappiness with the present. No, she was a planner, and being a planner meant she had control over her life, but:

She could never remember what she wanted, forgetting the one thing in her life constant: consistent desires simultaneously conflicting.

“Closing eyes, hoping to die, or just to catch some sleep,” I wrote unironically. Thinking these words, wrapped in sheets, realizing my ungratefulness for my endless opportunity. I have nighttime fantasies of waking up never again to breathe. Falling from buildings; car chases and wrecks and sheet metal spilling; self-inflicted wounds un-filling; none of these things, conscious, am I ever willing. Concocted fantasies of saving lives from a gunfight while losing my life in the process, dying right just to process – these elaborate dreams that call me to sleep. But how could I have ever known these were nightmares cloaked in twisted fantasy? Looking above my window sill up to my bedroom ceiling. Take a pill to add or remove a feeling. The moment I’m awake and focused – the second I’m alert I know this: I would be scared in real life with a detriment to my life occurring consciously. The minute I feel a pain, see a mark, or obsess online, I begin to start worrying. Indeed, so strong when I think, before going to sleep, of these situations happening to me. Comparatively, how weak do I seem, when I’m functioning, cognitively. I would never want any of these things happening to me, yet they routinely pull and normally cull me to sleep. Looking above my window sill up to my bedroom ceiling; all I’d still beg for is to embrace healing. To look beyond what I can currently see, but time and distance are abstracts like me. If so, then does anything exist beyond what I concurrently see?

Closing eyes, hoping to die, or just to catch some sleep,” I wrote unironically. Saying these words, yet never knowing what they mean. So, it goes, when a sickness comes around, I suddenly find myself, and I find myself suddenly rethinking. How was this my outlook after all? After all is done, did it suit me any better or make me struggle less or make me smile more? Now that all is done, can I answer for my own cancer and confirm what I knew all along but didn’t know how to absolve – it wasn’t laziness; it was just not knowing how to fix this… but maybe it was by not trying to effort an attempt and instead support my contempt in feeling this way. It might as well have been a sentence unto death to sit here and take in breaths continuing to live this way. With inaction to improve / Without action to prove I was destined to be better. But what does better mean, and there is no destiny? But somehow I believe I was destined to do better. Then why do you don’t? Is it because you can’t or you won’t? My beliefs fail me if I fail them. If I do nothing to attain, beliefs are no more than dreams and worth nothing more than pain. Yet I’ll sit here, still feeling the same, doing nothing to attain, wondering why things don’t change while I recoil to refrain.

I lie awake, lying to myself, I’m living life like I’m asleep.

They said, “These words transcribed are all there is left of me.”

Close your eyes
And say goodbye
For all my friends to weep

“When I am dead, these words transcribed are all there will be left of me.”

And futilely,
One day these words will be just like me.

It’s hard to find the creativity we once had. At a certain age, imagination flees the soul and we become embodied in this hollow cutout of childlike wonder we once possessed but no longer retain even the slightest glimpse of. At a specific point, different for all but one and same the result, we become imprisoned in this life of mundane and falsely perceived spontaneity, characteristics condoning of one who puts on a special character, a façade of a being and a charade of a life. Our lives living are none as our lives to pictures. The perception we create of the wonders we partake, we are no more of than spiritual entities are real. Our lives are to images portrayed in social media as to ideological ramblings conveyed in text, beautiful expressions screaming, “How wonderful it is,” but underneath nothing more than concealed bullshit dressed in insecure lies. And the cycle only feeds, continues to grow and prosper, get stronger and worsen. For a break we can log off, sign out, and pretend to not be products of this mindlessness, but we are now what we are, and no longer what we were in previous generations. We are the children of technology, of attention spans shorter than animals’… then again, is that not what we are, and what we have always been? Perhaps we are continuing human nature, just in an evolved way. How else would you expect natural instincts of primal beings to handle such abilities, such imprisonments?

It’s 10:15 in the morning, Eastern time. All of the clichés ring true. The sun is shining. Birds are chirping. Flowers growing. It paints a pretty picture, but it’s one I turn a blind eye to. My head is pounding like a drum. My body would yell dehydration if it had the energy, or I suppose the ability. I would like to be captured by my closest companion sleep, but to no avail I try. I would like to rise from this prison, but as I consider moving, a pattern of pain slowly begins beating in my head, thud, thud, thud. Unable to rid myself of this hangover, I succumb to the only option I have left: lying in bed, scrolling through social media. It seems every time I tempt the limits of inebriation, I find myself in this predicament. Moreso, it seems every time I wake, regardless of state, I enroll myself to this same ritual. Wake up. Check texts. Facebook. Twitter. Instagram. Snapchat. Carry on. Work all day. Go to sleep. Wake up. Oh, someone’s in a relationship. It’s about time that happened. Carry on. Party all night. Go to sleep. Wake up. Ugh, I wish someone didn’t tag me in that photo. Untag. Carry on. This is what life is now. We are all plugged in, and there is no off switch. After all,

If we’re so full of life,
How come we don’t have long to live?
If we’re so full of strife,
How come we have so much to give?
So brilliant.  So fragile.
I wonder what we will get.
Do we sink for miles?
Or do we see the golden chariot?

Nonetheless,

I wrote this with lines from stories I wrote 5, 6, and 11 years ago.
Not knowing what to write, when things are going right.
I am a fraud.

I could not foresee this thing happening to you.

In the moment, you sometimes hold the truth so close and so undeniable that this feeling will last forever. You’ll remain in this state of peacefulness and happiness, content, and live the rest of your peaceful and happy life peaceful and happy.

Time slows or stops altogether. Like the still silence between asking, “Will you marry me?” and seeing tearful eyes reply, “I will,” the opening of an envelope addressed to you from your dream school’s dream program, and 60 seconds on a treadmill, you now bear witness to eternity. Except you’ve already heard the answer to your question, read the acceptance to your new life, and completed your workout. Your eternity is elation, peace, and happiness. You know this to be true.

But in a moment, it’s all over, and you admit to yourself the truth you’ve known all along, that the feeling you seek is so far and so unattainable, and the truth was a lie. Just as you heard the answer, read the acceptance, and completed the workout, those moments were over, and the afterglow didn’t last forever. It never lasts forever.

Even when the moments build, the weeks and months pass and the glow remains, and the small victories appear so large and the big setbacks seem so little, it doesn’t last.

“You fool. How could you fall for this… Again?” He asked himself, aware it was a rhetorical question for which he knew the answer, but also aware he had tricked himself before, many times, so how could he trust his knowledge now, and could he have faith his awareness was not full of deceit?

“Many times. How many times are you going to do this to yourself? Many times. You know the glow will turn to dark. A grey tint will be placed over everything, a dim shade on everything you see. The sky will fade to black.”

“How did I get here?” He sat, and wondered, and sat and wondered again, some more. Longer, as time passed, longer than the 60 seconds in which he was eternally content. He rolled over, eyes pressed against his forehead, weighted behind pain, waiting on a savior to bestow mercy upon his misery. How much time had passed, he didn’t know, and rightfully so, it didn’t matter. He could lie in bed hungover for another 4 hours before he had to try to salvage his day – another 14 hours before he had to try again to begin the next day.

But this hangover wasn’t like the other ones. It was different. More painful. More hopeless. More internally inescapable. Because like all of the hangovers from nights out or nights in drinking, the fog still drifted through his head. But unlike those blackout memories, none of this derived anxiety was the result of physical stimulation.

“How did I get here?” He said, puzzled at the question that lay before him, tangled in his mind, like his restless body in his wrinkled sheets. “I was just so happy. Things were going so well. Aren’t things still going so well? What happened? I was just so happy.”

“I’m just so happy.” He got off the phone with his best friend. It was the first time they caught up in a while.

They didn’t used to have to catch up. They used to live in the same city, and their lives used to not be too busy.

But this was how things went at a certain age, inevitably. And they were grateful they both still cared enough to catch up, undeniably.

And after he let her talk first, to get up to speed on her life, so that he could talk at length about his, he then, well – he then talked at length about his.

“Well, I guess there’s professionally and personally, but both are going well. Um, professional world first, I guess,” he stated as he wandered to his car from his apartment.

“It’s looking like I’m going to get the promotion, and that’s pretty cool. I’m still not sure how excited I am about this career path, but it’s not a bad place to be in. At least, I have put in the work, so getting rewarded for it would be really nice. The salary, too – I wouldn’t complain about more money.”

He was concentrating more on the conversation than he devoted attention to the task at hand, but how much brain power did errands require, he figured. The weather app that he never checks said sunny, high of 74 degrees, with a 10% chance of rain. The predicted forecast checked out – it was sunny, it felt like more-or-less like it was in the 70s, and there was no sight of rain.

“The personal life. It’s been random, but good. Like very random, but very good. I can’t recall the last time I’ve felt this confident. It’s weird, you know, you go through periods of just wanting to be inside at all times, inside your apartment but not stuck inside your head, hidden away from the chores of the world for the day. But lately, I haven’t felt any of that. I’m going to new places, meeting new people – girls, you know. Numbers. Dates. It’s all coming together. Hell, even my old clothes look better.”

He spoke the words genuinely. He meant them. He believed them. He sincerely said them.

“I guess that’s it, though. After all, what else is there to life? In the world?”

He knew she was listening, attentively, thoughtfully, and carefully, but he was talking to himself. This dialogue was crafted as a conversation in his own head, repeated to himself at various points throughout the day, when he lie in bed at night trying to push the thoughts away, and in front of the mirror, this is what he had to say. That’s probably why it didn’t seem so real.

“It was good catching up. Let me know next time you’re back in town, and I’ll have to come up for a trip sometime. Glad to hear things are going so well. Let’s not go this long without a call again. I’ll probably text you my thoughts during the game tomorrow though, ha. Take care.”

He hung up, nearing the cash register on his afternoon trip. Some toiletry and trivial purchases later, and his self-mandated tasks were complete. He embarked upon the return trip to his apartment. On the accomplished journey home, he noticed the atmosphere above him begin to change – or more accurately, had already changed, and was continuing its trend toward a bleaker projection.

He parked his car within the lines, offputtingly perfectly straight. It wasn’t 5:59 PM yet, or even close, but the sun he knew so well earlier in the afternoon was gone. He had grown so accustomed to it while he was driving and spending time inside buildings; now it felt so new without it. He didn’t know how to react at first, getting out of the driver’s seat, the windshield left without a purpose without a sun. Everything he talked about earlier became so distant. But as he moved to the backseat, to the few full bags sitting there, an unsettling feeling began to creep in. Everything he spoke of was so fake. He walked to the front door of his apartment, bags and unsettling feeling in tow, making themselves at home. He was a fool. By the time he put the bags on the counter, the sky enveloped him from outside his windows, and he was consumed with an overwhelming need to navigate to his room and find his bed. But he couldn’t fool himself. The need was present in all of his senses, and when he thought about it, he was finally able to make sense of it.

“I know how I got here.” He said, no longer puzzled at the question that lay before him, once tangled in his mind, like his restless body in his wrinkled sheets. “I knew one day it would come for me, one day it would be back. I’m not sure how I ever could forget. The darkness would take hold – the darkness has taken hold, and I’m not sure now if I can remember the light.”