2 Minutes. Go!

Misery

Eyes locked to the ceiling, feeding on insecurity, the eyes have it … they see you, they track you. You can’t escape them, and you flounce in front of them, smiling – you have not seen the brutal reality that you stumbled into. You sniff deep, smelling burnt blood. You are immune to human reason, and you are drifting away, untethered.

Used to be, you could see past the end of the tunnel, imagine a bright something. Used to be, you slept when you were sleeping, and craved your consciousness. Now you dig down into the muck of yourself, and you think that this is progress.

Watch the children play. They are preparing for adulthood. The assholes are busy assholing. The cheats are looking away furtively. The stupid are loud, and the wise are few and far between. No one cares about you and your sensitivities. They said they did, but that was a trick. To lure you into the woods.

2 Minutes. Go!

I know there's extra kool aid, but I'm not thirsty. I know there's ways to placate the rage, but I don't have a television. I know that fucking a supermodel will make me feel better until I come, but I am a premature ejaculator. I know the president is a fucking crook, but some folks really like him.

I know we've come a long way, but I ain't black or trans. I know the system's broken, but I'm a simple man.

I can think of only simple solutions, and I'm not there yet.

I know that you didn't mean to do it, but you did it. You weaseled your mask through the forest, and all you got was scratches. Bleed. I don't give a fuck. I didn't lead you there.

I know you got diplomas and lots of other reasons you think you're better than me. Hell, your Moms would agree. But I'm into three dimensional people, personally. But maybe that's too much to ask of you; your eyes are tired from rolling.

I'm tired of political reflux. Keeps me up at night. Makes my brain tweak out on guilt prophecies. So, we'll keep it simple. Fuck yourself. Fuck me. Fuck climate change. I'm down with driving this hunk of bullshit right into fire.

2 Minutes. Go!

The wind came gently through the low, dry branches and the dogs were light and liquid. The water suggested swift currents and deep eddies, soft entreaties. Jack, tired and lopsided, spit into the water and smiled - the air smelled of fish like he knew it would. The dogs knew. The wind and the trees and the beckoning evening. It was all right, and it was within Jack - he breathed it and his heart beat with it; he could feel the blood throb on the old cork handle. He smiled again, spit once, and cast into the loamy froth that he had seen in dreams, now revealed as he knew it would be.

The line slipped through his fingers as Jack worked the ideas and riffles and logs right through his mind, unconscious. Jack was part of the river and the river knew it. The river, which took only what you were willing to give it, but gave so much back. Jack gave himself to the water, let it carry him, there in spirit only as he became silk, flowing night.

Smells on the wind. Smoke from a fire. Good smoke, clean and fresh - Jack felt the warmth of the stranger's fire and nodded his head, matted grey hair stuffed under a red, woman's hat. Spit in the water and smell of the good night, Jack. Smell and breathe and you are the river, Jack. See what the river can give you.

And hours passed in tepid lifetimes and fish were caught, released, killed and eaten. Jack turned into stories and legends and ways to fool yourself into thinking things used to be better than they were. Jack doesn't care, nor does the river. Drought or flood, the river adapts, and it will outlast us all. Even when it disappears. Because rivers cannot die. And neither can anglers and storytellers.

2 Minutes. Go!

You can’t see high enough to know any better. You don’t know enough to duck, even. You’ll stare right into the face of everything, and you’ll wish you hadn’t. Sometimes. You’ll wish you were one of those stumbling adults in the corner. They are so big and they are so loud and they are not scared like you are. At least, that’s what you think.

Adults are free. They have agency. No one tells them to go to bed and not eat cookies and hug people they don’t know very well.

You sit in the backyard and promise yourself that you will leave and never come back. You hide in attics, under cars, in the abandoned lot behind your house. You scream at the trees and set fires just for the sake of watching things burn.

You get hurt and you cover your face, and you can keep it covered for years. Sometimes it takes years to learn to be childlike in the sense that we romanticize it. Sometimes, you never learn how and you spend your whole life running. Or cowering.

Maybe they’re the same thing.