Around 10:21pm I’d play this song in my empty studio, peering out from my 6th story view. Maybe go for a walk after. It usually took me until 1:13am to sleep, so what’s left to do other than walk about or browse forums to glue whatever fragments found in the words of others? — for my words felt so feeble and unassuming, as was the usual demeanor one took on to hop along.
On the walk I’d tenaciously add clouds around any passer-by. Give them a moment to move past the background. Walking through soppy night streets of any metropolis makes you do so. With some prior rainfall I can’t help but give a glance to anyone that marches on by, coat keeping them warm. Radiating neons lighting up their whites. Directed beyond the moment, toward wherever their destination was. Only their destination; never were they there with me. Nor was bakery. It was usually closed by then and yet that’s when I wanted to go, since it felt more like a home than what home was in those days.
What would you say to all of those passer-bys, if you could break your role? When I tried as an unassuming convenience store clerk I was met with confusion and a hurried credit-card swipe. Beer was, without surprise, the usual purchase.
…..
A lot of people sometimes want that “Poor you!” because it closes the book. Finally! Someone is seeing all the things I’ve had to endure and they’re admitting it’s not the faint of heart; maybe for once I am elevated above the bureaucratic rebel that unlatches a suitcase full of treats for lunch (of one) and clocks out 7 minutes before, since the software doesn’t care. Can a person be graced with a badge for once, for once can someone hear me?
But no matter how many times you tell your story you’re also adding a nail to your coffin. That’s the arc of your life right there, and so we’ll bolt it down with every rehash. Shrink into the teacup that I’m tempting to break just to shake myself out of this mass serenade before the altar of finance, trudging to my death. The altar of my small life. Snuff me out into insignificance! is what I want to unabashedly scream, because I find it courageous to be a little honest to yourself. Yourself most of all.
For I realized that even if I had a stadium of 20k, 50k, a million, twenty million, the moment closes, the curtains are drawn and my sweaty hands still open up that empty apartment. And I’m the one that’s calling it empty. Why’s that?
The window sill looked so bare without some overhanging plants, stakes to keep the vines steady up toward the bits of sunlight — may spring soon come! Couldn’t I usher it in? But I was too disheveled to think such things in those days.
…..
I write all of this out because I find the usual passer-by the ideal story. And that was found by being one.
You can call me a masochist for listening to romance tunes that, in the long run, make you caustically empty — for you begin to believe Salvation is found in others. Which just isn’t the case at all. Salvation is only found in yourself.
.The one, I want the one, you’re the one. — no no no, YOU are the ONE that you want. You are your “One” that you’re searching for, and that’ll be true until the end, and will be forever.
The passer-by I was searching for, all those years, post-graduate and before and elementary or beyond, was myself. Although I found my passer-by, I now have to start the conversation. Gotta shoot your shot… it’s rude to keep yourself waiting.
:-)