Day Moonbeams

There’s something in the air that drifts, floats, pops into a semblance of a moonbeam. I wine and dine the thought that it could be a flying moat of dust or a piece of cosmic detritus coalescence. I ponder the thought of trash in a meaningful extraterrestrial form for a moment as I follow the thing to its source. It’s a moonbeam, but in the daytime coming through my window. What if we were all on a floating piece of waste in someone else’s day moonbeam? It makes me feel just as small as that little something moving through the air. I am no more meaningful than that collection of skin cells floating through the air above me. Drifting through the dust moats that have a swirling piercing motion about them. That’s what the day moonbeam reminds me of, a ray of sunshine coming through my window. They slump through the holes in my wall without any regard for my furniture, much like my cat. He looks liquid, the way he moves through the spaces between the dust moats and sunbeams. Like a slug, his eyes seem to leave trailing iridescent worms across the floor. He follows those slipping blundering sunbeams to the head of my bed and stares at me with his eyes like the cold windowpane the sliding beam has stumbled through. Sitting there his purring smells like that moat of dust. Like warm hugs, soft blankets, deep motor roars, and the inescapable way the heat waves off the pavement.

He oozes his way up onto my chest and kneads my blanket to a soft tacky texture. Much like he is kneading dough. As the bread develops gluten and starts to lose its stickiness his claws come out and pocket my chest with explicit punctuations. Maybe he has a point, maybe I should get up out of bed. As I put my foot down my arches immediately tighten and I feel a sharp pain shoot across my plantar. I must have forgotten to ice them last night after my run. Those new arch supports in my shoes take a little bit to get used to. I bought them to make sure I don’t get plantar issues. Why are they doing the opposite? I knew I couldn’t trust the salesman. I think he sold me a bunch of bullshit. I should have listened to what my grandfather always says, never trust a man who puts shoes on your feet with a smile. Better stretch out my arches as it would never do to develop the plantar fasciitis. I try and spend as much time on one foot as I do on the other. This is hard, as just one of my feet hurts. But you have to massage both of them because if you don’t you might end up with a muscular imbalance. Muscle imbalances are the bane of distance running. They displace your performance and destroy your efficiency. I hope I don’t develop plantar fasciitis. I had it once and I had to stop running for a month. I can’t take that time off now. I can’t lose all the hard work I have been putting in. I need running to deal with the stress of life. I need running to deal with class. I need running to deal, I can’t have it taken away from me. The ten-block walk to class is going to be fun today, with this pain in my arch.

Class, that’s right. It’s at this moment that I realize I have a test today. I feel my chest tighten. I feel it pushing my ribs out and collapsing my organs in. I hold my ribs tight with both arms. This tightness has nothing to do with running. This is not just any test but my final. I hold my ribs with both arms. The final to a fifteen-week course. If I don’t hold my ribs in place I know they will bust out of my chest. This is a very important test and I can’t miss it. I should quickly get my things together. How will I do on the test? My fingers start to hurt as I hold my ribs inside my skin. There’s been so much going on in my life lately. I feel so underprepared. I studied so much last night, my head got so full that I had to run to decompress. I know I never do well on tests. Why do I get my hopes up that this test will be any different? Maybe I shouldn’t go. What difference would it make? My ribs ache. I do remind myself that a very low grade is always better than a zero. So regardless of how bad I will do on this test, even if I only get one question right, it will be better than not going.

I have to get my things now. One step at a time. Getting ready is the only thing in my life that I can do without failing. My ribs ache. I don’t have to think about putting my laptop inside my backpack. Or think about making my toast. I can try and think about anything but the test coming at the end of my walk. Maybe I can outwalk this expanding tightness. That’s all my thoughts are focused on as I step out the door. My thoughts focused on not thinking about the pressure to do well on this test. This test, the pressure that we set on ourselves. Funny that we pay people to do this to us.

As I walk down the street, trying not to think of the test at the end of the sidewalk, I contemplate this idea of a self-imposed detriment to our health. The tightness starts to slowly dissipate as I walk down the pavement. Funny that as I think about a detriment to our health the tightness is evanescing. This whole establishment of finding people that say they have something for you then when you pay they say you have to stay for hay that they put in the bay of a ray of day moonbeams. We must be a nation of people with desperately animated kinks. To put ourselves through this turmoil of ups downs through the dancing hoops in our brains that give us compensation. Those muscles heaped in tight organic cinnamon roles atop our structure collum. As I pass the last traffic light it reminds me that, unlike stopping to let the heap of metal on wheels pass so I don’t die in the rolling over my bones it would dole out to me, what we do in this perverted bent wretched game of mental satisfaction is entirely self-inflicted. We could use this time among the floating day moonbeams to play with the object of a formal considering.

To formally consider? Consider formally? Formally. Consider.

Tolling, tolling, tolling, tolling, tolling, tolling, tolling, tolling, tolling

I hear the campus clock strike nine. I’m late for my final. My chest tightens. I feel it pushing my ribs out and collapsing my organs in. I hold my ribs tight with both arms. If I don’t, they will pull off of my body because of this tightness. This muscular tightness pulls into my chest. Closing my airway and shortening my breath. My vision starts to move sporadically. From face, to face, to face, to face. Everyone must see this expanding tightness in my ribs. They must all know that I am going to fail this test. This test is so important that I have to try. The same reason I got out of bed to try and not think about this test. I have to try and get this expanding tightness out of my ribs. But trying can’t get this tightness out of my ribs. This is here to stay. All I can do is breathe.

Breathing is hard but. Breathing helps.

Breathing gets in the ribs and helps that tightness.

Breathing is good.

Holding my ribs and breathing deep I slowly start to walk to class again. I feel the pain in my arch with every step. I have to make it there regardless of any amount of tightness in my ribs. Moving helps the tightness as well. I need to run. I can’t run on campus with everyone watching. Maybe I can outwalk this tightness. It couldn’t hurt to try. I start to walk as fast as socially acceptable. As I take more steps and hold my ribs the tightness slowly forms a glaze. That glaze holds my ribs in place and helps the tightness. I think and I hope it will be enough to get through the test.