Tick-Tock

There it sits. On that verge way over there. It rocks back and forth. Taunting fate. Tempting disaster. Challenging physics. It nearly falls a hundred times but never does. It plays a winning game. It trusts within itself.

A clock sounds in the center of my heart. It ticks with my beats and tocks when my heart rests. The sound fills every corner of my being. And I am filled with knowing; when it stops it will fall. If it isn't salvaged, it will die.

Tick-Tock.
It reverberates through the painful corners. It is louder than all my loud. It is the new center of my life. When it stops it falls and I fall. The knowledge is soul chilling -when it stops I stop.

Tick-Tock.
The deadline looms ahead. Its rocking is numbered. Soon it will fall. Unless. But my hands are tied. I can't save it. I can't save myself. I sit and watch.

Tick-Tock.
I weep and pray. I sob and hope. I use all my reservoirs to will it to be saved. I believe against doubt. I hope and pray with all my might.

Tick-Tock.
Don't fall. I beg you, don't fall. Stop ticking. I beg you, lend it some extra time. Don't fall. I can't lose you. Someone will save you. Just don't fall.

And yet still Tick-Tock.
Don't let it fall. I beg you, God, don't let it fall. Save it. Save me.

Tick-Tock.

Another Fix

Give me one more fix of fiction. Another dose of anything that isn't reality. Numb my brain cells and lull them into a world that isn't my own. Fill me with feelings that have nothing to do with how I feel. Pump my mind full of images of people that don't exist. Distract me so thoroughly that my mind finds the escape it so badly seeks. Submerge me in any world that isn't mine until my chest stops aching and my tears dry. Take me away from reality and abandon me in fiction, forget that I ever existed and help me forget that I ever was.

Allow me the leisure of being cast away from myself. Allow my mind the bliss of forgetting that I am who I am and the things that are happening are happening. Let me lose sense of the goodbyes looming in my horizon, of the pain of leaving, of breaking apart what took so long to build. Let me instead hide in a world of wizards and magic, worlds with zombies and killers. Let the drama I watch unfold and become the foldings of my mind until my own folds lie unfurled and painless. Grant me an out -mere minutes of peace living outside of myself.

Give me a fix of fiction to hush the pain enough to let me breathe for a few moments. Just a few moments of relief before reality finds a way back in. Escape is wonderful, but reality has a way of catching us no matter how fast we run, or how deep we bury ourselves. Reality crashes through the layers of fiction, it peels apart the not real and attacks with violent stabs that nothing but real can possess. Reality hurts and aches and suffocates when the fiction is set down and the lights go out. Reality is never as real as it is when your eyes are closed and there is nothing to distract your mind from itself. 

Unjust Workings

Let me tell you of the unjust workings of the world. Let me tell you of the day-to-day unfair dealings that have more impact than most can see.

There are people who are rude. They are loud and demanding. They push the line of appropriate social conduct past the limit as a hobby. They push people around. They are inconsiderate to anyone that isn't themselves. They are selfish. They are childish. They are so high maintenance you have to climb a mountain of eggshells stuffed with mines around them. They make you dislike them. They are bullies, and the world is their play ground. And yet, people will go out of their way to be decent to them. They will give them what they so loudly demand, they will get their way and no one will stand and say no. They get the best treatment. They get decency in return for their lack thereof.

And then there are people who try so hard to be decent. They are easy going. They are forgiving. They are understanding and compassionate. They aren't demanding. They accept anything you have to offer. They would take the worst and they would accept it and forgive and forget. They take what they can get, and whatever else they want they convince themselves they don't need. They compromise at their own expense. They never push to get their way. They are lenient and kind. And so people take them for granted. They stomp all over them. They get the short end of the stick every day of their lives because everyone knows they're too nice to object or demand more. They get trampled. They get mistreated in return for their decency.

That is how we operate. We reward the bullies out of fear and we punish the people who deserve rewarding. And when the bullies rise and gain in place and power we blame the world for making wrong choices. When in fact it is people like us, the ones that cater to those who need to be told off on, that made the bully into what they become.

In this scenario there are four groups of people -bullies, boot-lickers, stompers and decents. My only solace is that even thought I keep getting squished under running feet, at least I was the mistreated, not the mistreater. Even though I've turned into pulp, at least I can still sleep with a clear conscience. 

They Storm

They gain strength when I'm left at their mercy. They storm and rage with such force that my frail frame stands no hope. They tug at my pretenses; they pull at my smiles and my laughter. They rain all over my dying, flickering flame. They scrape against barely healed skin and peel down to thin bones. They lend strength to shadowy webs of fear until the shadow consumes all. They constrict the space within my chest until the room for air is filled with ache instead.

They storm water from my eyes and rage death within my chest. That is all there is to be said. 

Freedom to Run

Sometimes it gets too much. Sometimes it's all too heavy. And when it is, I used to run. I used to go out to my favorite place and run as fast as my too slow legs would take me. I would feel the wind in my hair, the crisp air exploding into my lungs and the pounding of my heart in every inch of my body. The exhilaration of running with such freedom, with pain shooting up my twitching muscles and feeling breathless even though I'm so full of air -it filled me with energy and life. Enough of them that the weight would feel just a little less.

Those were good days. Now I have nowhere to run. It gets too much, and then it gets even more. It gets too heavy, and then it gets heavier and I suffocate and choke. The load never eases off. I can't run, I can't feel my precious wind piercing my lungs. I can't feel alive with my pulse exploding in every inch of me. I don't have that simplest of freedoms anymore.

I just want to run. 

Dancing

I'm dancing along the edge. My body pulses in time with a song about feelings. I can't control the movements of my limbs, nor can I control the music reverberating through my bones. I dance at the line separating sanity from mind loss, and in my dancing I hop between the two sides.

My mind is lost to the beat. I fall a victim to the edge and gain my footing all during the same song, and over and over again. I'm not in control of where my body goes. I'm not in control of how my particles choose to act. The music is. 

The Sound of an Email

The sound an email makes after it travels through the complicated web and as it lands into my phone. That specialized tone I've set for emails and nothing else. That sound that seems hardwired to those parts of my brain that issue the command for adrenaline to pour into my blood. The sound an email makes has the ability to send my heart racing and pounding in my chest. My body shakes in response and my heart does triple its usual work.

A slab of contradicting feelings slams into my chest and fills me to the brim. One side urges me to check it, check the email, we're dying to know. The other side cowers and begs that we're not ready. I ignore both voices and reach my hand out to my phone. I don't do it because I'm  brave, or because I've listened to the side that's dying to know. I do it on autopilot. Your phone makes a sound. You check it.

My shaky fingers click the tiny icon for emails, I click inbox with my heart in my throat. And it says iTunes, or Twitter, or Paypal. It doesn't really matter what it says, because my mind reads it as unimportant, doesn't matter -not it. It's not the email that decides the rest of my life. It's not the email my adrenaline was released for. It's still not the one.