24.9.2011

The smallest grain

One thing ends, another begins. Such is life on its simplest terms.

The wind blows, the lion roars, the butterfly spreads its wings. All part of an intricate, ever-expanding web of arcane vibration. Motions of ebb, oceans of flow. Cyclic, stunted yet a helix in every which way, through and through and beyond for just a bit more exposure. Just enough to dip over the threshold above the endless and below the unimagined. The hydra ignites the swell the halcyon, in turn, soothes into sleep.

I am no more significant than this puff of smoke I exhale. We are each endlessly engaging and miraculous in fashions both mundane and absolutely impenetrable by thought or dialogue. There is a subtle yet overpowering comfort in thoughts like this.

I envision myself the smallest grain of sand, contemplating our significance as dandruff digging into the scalp of a being whose mere existence stretches beyond the borders of what we fathom and envision as the frayed edges of reality's flickering light. We are specks of dust upon specks of dust buried under the fingernails of gods outgrown of monickers and deity, engaged in conversation our reverberating lips can mirror no more than a poem could capture sunlight disappearing behind the crest of the moor.

Tapping away at this keyboard with a faulty M key, the air around me floats by with a heavy pulse, a feathery haze of sensual sentiments. I sneak a peek from the edge of the surface, the outstretched arms of the sea cluttered with thoughts of soft skin and hard bodies. What are we if not angelic bastards and bastardettes, bereft of wings, bleeding from our backs with fresh blood drying on our sore claws. Yet so beautiful.

My knuckles drag across the lining of this brazen bull. Sweat forms only to vaporize instantly. I can feel the flames rising from below, melting my skin and flesh as the copper heats. Through the ordeal I consider if laying in the fire is merely a small price to pay for the deathsong I might be able to expel as the soul vacates its shell. I suppose that's faith in something. They say your bones would shine like diamonds after you'd been roasted to death. A fitting end, regardless of what must have been unbearable agony.

Still, pain remains uninteresting. A blunt instrument devoid of melody. In this golden cage I call sanctuary pain is indistinguishable from stillness. And vice versa, of course. Thoughts are bullets, words form projectiles and music is an armada on the prowl, but all armaments are rendered powerless by the strength of suffocation. I need all tongues animated, all posts manned, yet find myself frozen under concrete skies. Time trickles through the cracks and contours of the wood, sluggishly charting passageways nearly impossible to navigate. My cage is perilous and deceptive; as endless as it is narrow.

A land called Nowhere. A place I know all too well.