It is night and the music careens through the dream of sleep that worries me like a dog pulling at a shoe. Smoke curls from my lips, headache pounding its deliberate beat in tandem with clappjng worshippers of a God that I love but won't talk to.
This is another night like the one before and the one after. In my chest, a hollow space filled with charred vessels. I don't mind much because I have been building this pyre for years and now that each wood is dry as the cough wracking havoc within my bones, I only wait for an ember to spark the light and set me aflame.
I toss the stub through the window. I stare at the wall. I wait for some sort of divine mercy. I pray that I survive another day. Yet I live like today is the end, that tomorrow will be another juncture filled pain and regret. I am not sure I am ready to go. I wish I had more time to do things right, to fight the demons that assail me, to defeat them, to live in the light and glam of being alive and untethered from the trauma and fear.
I promise myself, tomorrow I will do better. I will carry water to the river, bring fire to the sun, push sand into my skin to remind of finite spaces, of endings and beginnings. I want to be better. I want to be healthy. I want to run, to jump, to fly free as I may have in the now hazy first movement of the symphony of my life. Can I get those wishes to come true? Can I reimagine myself? Can I finish this painting of yellows, ash and blood?
I am afraid of the pain that will come. I am afraid that I will wake to darkness one day. I am afraid that I will not be able to say everything that I want to say, hug the people I love, tell them that I love them and that they should not be angry with me. I may not have fulfilled my simple aspirations. I think the only true thing I have stuck to in this life is waiting to leave it.
In my waking dream, I am running in the dark, unsure of what pursues or what I am running towards. The prayers are many in the night, people seeking something from God. The security rings the gong to signal his alert state. All of these are signs of people trying to move beyond existing the only way they know how. But who am I?
Who am I to question time? Maybe this is how it supposed to be. Maybe I was never meant to be happy. Maybe I was never meant to live long. Maybe my heart broke a long time ago. I don't know. I know that I have been lying on the ground, my leg in stream of piss and puke, and my head stiffening the blood clot of my fall.
These are random words that must wound you but these are the fevered tantrums of a weary mind. Look at how I am splayed before the camera of life. Look at the laughter of the children as I rise from my fall and stumble away into the soft drizzle and dusk. Is this not the world that made me? Is this not the god that broke me?
There must be a testament here, a prophecy of sorts. There must be divine intervention hidden in the meaningless ramble of my dream. I am pressured against the wall, the blood clot hurts my brain. I am hungry for everything that can silence the screams. The liquor no longer does the job. The weed is nothing but chaff. Do you understand what it means to be empty? Do you know anyone who survives this catatonia?
The life fades off then comes back on, louder then sound diminishes as I stumble along, my hands rubbing the city off the walls. The dirty city becomes my clothes, dresses me in the uniform grime of struggle. I become like everyone else; lost, confused, angry, sad, weak, hard, low down cruel, kind. I have nothing to give so no one knows this. No one believes I hold anything dear.
But this thing is coming to an end. I am at the bridge. It is night. It is silent except for the gentle lap of logs tied together in repose. They look so much like bodies bobbing in the wake of a nautical disaster. I stare into the river to find my eyes, to see my soul, to see if God sleeps there. If they did, I would have embraced them. I searched high and low but nothing.
I jump. I fly. I touch the soft skin of clouds. I empty myself. I find space, catch the moon. I am the first man to traverse the universe. I am a god. I create. I begin again. It is the seventh day and I have made man in my image and indeed, he carries all my pain. I do not wake from the dream. I remain forever in catatonia, a god of many worshippers. Each prayer, I answer; each sin, I forgive.