‘A Sound Rings Outward’

“Maybe it’s sad that these are now memories.

And maybe it’s not sad.”

(A shallow grave for a seed and a sea)

It’s about fifteen steps up or down or to recovery but most importantly its a number so it must be real. There’s a reason and a meaning behind it. There’s hope and a promise ahead of it. During it is when it’s most important. Enduring it is most important. It’s a shallow grave, just enough to cover the eyes; to numb the joints; to dull the ears; to fill the throat and rob the sense of smell. Quiet, cold, dark, and exactly where and when it should be. For about fifteen steps up or down or to recovery I have seen every light I could in each eye (left and right) and soon my branches and my roots will grow into each other and wither. From a seed, comes a sea. An endless body from fathomable to unfathomable for fathoms and fathoms and it never ends because it never started. 

(When it speaks, it forgets)

Once, I wrote something I read, because it meant something to me (I thought). But since then every word has been burned because meaning is too easy to find and words are filled with holes and people are bad to each other. So goes the sickening fate of Us. Nothing ever got changed until after the fact and after the fiction and after every other F in between. Once, I thought a word had the ability to change a person. I was so wrong, in every sense. People change words into worlds and live inside them and shout back at themselves. When they speak, they lose the ability to listen. Speak one thousand words in my mouth and you’ll still forget who I am. Maybe even who you are. Maybe even what it was you were saying.

(Generally. Uneven)

Generally, it’s two sides to the coin because no one counts the edge. It’s eggs in a carton so you don’t have to worry about the basket. It’s feet first because you can still see where you’re going. It’s a lot of wrongs when no one is trying to make a right. Walk away for a while til you’ve landed on that third side, hands first, with a cracked dozen, and look at the caution. Forced smiles and uneven hearts. Getting too close to closed things. Leaping before laughing. Try not to care, at all, for as long as you can count. You can count on it. What doesn’t kill you still means you’re dying.

(The sun, and one million other places it shines)

Until it was a circle, it was all flat. So jump off the edge. Your sphere, in a cube, on a rectangle, on a bigger sphere in forever and you hardly move. Wouldn’t it be sad to have your most prominent memories be of the same surroundings. Looking through a window or walking through a door that knows you all too well. Settled into stagnancy out of fear or comfort and its funny how that works. This world is bigger than anything you will ever be and the best you can do is walk on it. Right now, there are a million people smiling that you will never see. There is a million places the sun is shining that you will never be. 

(Sometimes people just die, Charlie)

Sometimes, the story just ends. Sometimes, it was never there to begin with. Sometimes the next chapter is too long so you put it down and just forget about it. There are a lot of variables, sure. But if the story mattered you could pick it up anytime and it would all come back. Sometimes you have to re-read it because you forgot and that’s just not appealing so put the book back on the shelf for someone else. They say it takes a village, but a village takes individuals. 

It’s all the same all the time. Recycled thoughts and words and I can’t take it, or rather I refuse. Competitive in nature to win shame. Isolated by their own free will, with no promise. I’ll play the role of common enemy, building a better world bringing people together by their primitive instinct of hatred. Looking down on someone standing above them. Sure, no one wins all the time but at least realize when you’re losing. Look at what you say, listen to what you look like, try to feel something forward. Define the future, not your self deprecating presence. Acknowledge those around you for who they are, what they do, why they’re here. Accept only what you know. 

Maybe you need to know that those people exist, but I am not one of them.

You never know who the main character is going to be, it could be you.

(The story is over, the pages litter the floor and the ink ran bone dry)

Ergo,

Ego.

(Solus)