By The Pond

​There are a lot of people walking past. I recognise some of them, but it is unlikely that they should see me. I never forget the people I meet. I might not remember their name or occupation, but their signature remains burned into the fabric of my shaken memory.

I want to say something about those who come by again and again in this pressing, this passing storm. I want to speak of the folly and of the brilliance of this crowd. I want to have something of merit to say, but I only seem to have something to say about myself. How narcissistic, how perverse of me, only to have a self-focus. Yet I seem to have found sense enough to forgive myself.

The music plays in my headphones. I'm completely alone, and yet I'm not lonely. I wonder if I have simply become bored of my loneliness or fed up with my internal conversation about my loneliness. Things seem to get better when you don't expect them to be good. Is that being realistic or just hopeless?

Yet there is nothing more hopeful than to carry on living, no matter what it might look like, no matter how it should feel.

To be recklessly in favor of life, not because it has some purpose that you can conjure up in the unforgiving center of your mind, but because purpose is purpose enough—not to dance alone with those untrustworthy phantoms we call dreams, but to live, to see, and to listen.

It is true that the stories we tell ourselves have a profound impact on us, but what about those quiet moments where we cannot find the story? When the push and pull of the everyday embrace seems to hold us just enough to bear the sadness of some deep, untouchable sorrow, do I fancy myself to become or at one point have been broken and mysterious? Am I eccentric? Of course not. There is nothing going on with me that isn't going on with someone else. I guess I just have a harder time making peace with it. My fault, no doubt.

But why do I believe—or rather, why do I blame myself? Perhaps that is my demon for today. I can ask the Almighty for a response with all manner of words and deeds, but what is that worth without an honest response and movement of the heart?

It comes back to some kind of question I didn't know I was allowed to ask: How do I wish to feel? How do I wish to be? What do I want? The selfish, selflessly selfish question, that vibration of no sound, the rumble of life from the depths of an ocean heart—the price of life's spice.

I don't like what I am saying, or perhaps I don't like the way I said it. There is something within me directed towards the negative with undying certainty. How can I correct it? Can I correct it? Should it be corrected? Is there anything to be corrected?

Is anything correct? Is there a question? If so, what is the answer? Do answers come from within or without? The music plays regardless. Words hold an empty purpose, yet they plunge beneath the surface. They overcome a lazy cursive. People pass by as they should, as they ought to do, as they must.

Buildings stand and waters flow, but what does it show? It shouts to me, it screams something that cannot be overcome. It tells an indifferent story of times lost long ago, times that stay today, times that lay the way for what exactly? For completion of some grand project? Some interminable embrace? Some narrative of the soul yet to be told? Yet to be pulled and scraped and collected from the fabric of the mind? Some striking pose which carries a boring message home where it belongs?

Hair flows and glasses glisten, laughter overpowers electric audio signals in bursts and cracks—too human, too natural for the noise-canceling neural network to restrict. Stopping by the pillar to exchange details for another day that will never come, looking out at the pond and its blinding reflection of brilliance, forgetting that this is the last time. Let it shine, let it be brighter than ever before. Let it sing a song, and let it be out of tune. Let it be crooked and dishonest while it is honestly so.

White shoes and neatly kept beards, cigarettes and jackets, hoods up and hoods down. White shirts tucked or untucked, messages left unread, messages left on read, messages left, messages forgotten, messages lost. Stolen phones on mute and loud, all the same. Craving for fame or a reason to blame, trying to outdo and overcome some stubborn shame. Lame, tame, what is my name?