Published: February 27th, 2024 | Last Updated: February 27th, 2024
It's been a year in this city of strangers.
It still feels unfamiliar, but a familiar unfamiliarity.
They dropped me off.
It's just me again.
Goodbyes are hard and wet and quick.
I know this city.
The silence and the “go” are familiar too.
It's crazy how the city talks, but after a year, no one wants to talk to you.
I talk and walk and smile.
Afterall, this city is my friend.
Yet I can't help but think, how many more miles until I don't have to pretend?
---
This tree is sickly.
So I'll climb what's left of it,
Look out through the leaves,
And wish I was shaded by another.
---
I told them I would be an astronaut someday. Nobody needed to tell me to reach for the stars; I just believed it to be true - I was going to be an astronaut.
Here I am, floating in outer space. But I am no astronaut.
I was the product of everyone else's universe. Somewhere along the way I let the gravity of their words weigh heavier than my dreams. Now I needed a nobody.
Still, here I am, floating in outer space. But I am no astronaut.
I was different than I was before. I lost my stardust. I was just another star in a galaxy with billions of them.
So here I am, floating in outer space. I am no astronaut.
How did I let myself drift this far into the depths of nothingness? Why did I let them take what is mine and make it theirs? Who am I?
All I know is that I am floating. And in such knowingness, I feel a weightlessness of my own gravity. I know now what I did not before: myself.
I told them I wanted to be an astronaut someday and they laughed at the thought of me becoming something, anything. Nothing and nobody is all I needed. I am going to be an astronaut.
---
Decisions. They must be made.
Some are feathers – they weigh light on the heart. Others are bricks – they sink the soul.
Decisions. They must be made.
For who knows the weight of wings until mid-flight?
Decisions. They must be made.
I have made a decision. And that is to not make a decision about decisions because with choice comes thought and with thought comes ignorance and there's no need to be ignorant when there exists equilibrium between predetermination and desire.
---
Did it fall off my bedside table? Was it in the cabinet that housed the paper and pens and notes from old friends? Maybe I shoved it away in the closet? Afterall, I haven't written much of anything.
No. No. And no. My journal was as elusive as the days that filled its pages.
Logic goes out the window. The hot summer air blows in to take its place. It's asphyxiating. I can't breathe. Panic.
Is it under the bed? Is it on my desk? Did I leave it in my childhood room?
No. No. And no. I declutter drawers like I'm gasping for air. I want it back. I need it back. All of it.
The night we drank at the playground. The parking lot breakup. The existential crisis caused by a glance in the mirror at 11:42pm. The hookup I wished meant more. The temperature falling. The fire that was blue. The happy. The sad. The in-between. The journal.
August killed me. It's not for the better. It's not for the worse. It just is.
So I open the cabinet that housed the paper and pens and notes from old friends, and I start all over again.
---
Pondering the human condition,
The Monochrome Man
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