Waiting Game

Do you hear that? In the distance, a church bell tolls; a train departs, steam rising in plumes, fading into the air. A mountain shifts for the first time in a millennia. A crooked rock spells out a letter; a cocked chin points the way.

I often spell out the gaps in my understanding with metaphors of utter nonsense. I sketch out empty monologues of rocks and trees, of clear and open skies, of fragmented memories, of a resentment of the time gone by. I recall past joys with a stern, jaded eye as if every laugh was forced, every spoken word fraudulent. I see past friends as ghosts; I see mistakes as brothers and sisters. I feel alone, and sometimes I feel better for it. Other times, I feel wrong, empty, cracked open at the core. Death feels like the angel on my shoulder, its hand out and open, eager to pull me out and away.

The past will stay the past, and every yesterday and today that fades into nothingness leaves me strange and stilted. I struggle to stay where the bell tolls. I cannot watch another train leave, polluting the already cloudy skies of my empty world. This disconnection, this obstruction, this clash of my endless mind and my hardened soul makes my heart bleed. It is still too soft, too quick to beat again and again, and my arms stay too pliant, too heavy at my sides. I stay in place, watching it all happen in the now while I drown in the yesterday, the today, the tomorrow, the death of life, the fading into the past.

Some days, pen is put to paper, and magic blossoms beneath it. Some days, I reach out, I come alive; I talk, I touch, I live. Other days, it will fade away like it was never there. I curl up in my bed and watch the ceiling cast shadows across my face. I sleep until evening, then again until morning. Those days, I don’t want to think. I want to disappear into myself, waiting until the next minute comes, mundane and overarching, rapid-fast like a snap. The clock ticks in my head. The flowers wilt and waver. My body aches; my eyes are heavy and tired. Everything is a regret, a falsity, a call to change, a waiting game until I come alive again.

And when I do, I hear it all from afar. Pretty chiming bells like heaven in my ears, and chugging trains holding hopes and dreams within them, moving, moving, going, leaving, landing. The mountains are taller, grander, miraculous in the way that they are still here, still standing. Within it all, I am here, too.

The world is at its best in its quiet subtleties. The heater hums as the wild winds blow outside the window. My cracked lips feel nice against the silky expanse of my open shoulder. Tattoos with years of age feel raw against my skin. I trace them just the same, thumbing the thickest patch of ink with a strange sort of tenderness, as if caressing a lover’s cheek, reassuring my flesh of what my mind in those blessed moments believes: that life’s gentle hand will show the way.