Life Itself

When you feel death come towards you, fast, really really fast, what do you do? Do you shut down? Do you give up and wait hopelessly? Or do you start living with a new found urgency, packing everything you can into the last few days, hours minutes? And if you do, what do you fill them with? With last minute wishes? With apologies, last words, goodbyes? With travel, with books, with movies? With new things, with old things? If someone told you, you were going to die, would you change how you lived your life? Would you have loved more, lived more? Would you have taken more vacations, danced more? Would you write that book, with all its truth? Would you have called the people that disappeared? Would you have done something different?

I opened your empty house and saw everything. That main door, that name plate, the easy couches, the glass, the water, the boxes, the cupboard above the door, the balcony, the orange border, the oversized furnishing, the lace, the hung shirts, the towel rod, the tiles, the paint, the gas, the plates, the curtains, the rug, the glass shelf, the tap, the plants, the bowl, the heater, the speakers. It felt like my home. And then, just like that, it was your home, and I was only a stranger trespassing.

I have partly accepted your silence. Your choice to ignore, to pretend, to forget. I have mostly embodied your distance. Your sudden change of mind, your near indifference. I have nearly understood your intention. Your unbecoming smile, your blank eyes. I have barely felt your unending discomfort. Your unrelenting confusion, your one-more goodbye.

There is a moment. That small chance to retract and change your mind. There is always that almost-hesitation. Because humans are like that. We mostly can't be strong willed enough to just stick with the decision. In that split second, before we jump, we always stop and question. But with you, there was none of that. It was simple, straightforward. Maybe because you never left any room for doubt. Maybe because your strength and conviction were so strong, my hesitation didn't stand a chance. I have had too many experiences of involuntary action to know that this wasn't even that. This was merely knowing that at some deep level, I could simply depend upon you. That somewhere, there was no need to watch my back. That you had your arm securely behind me, in the off chance I would trip. There's too many reasons to not believe, to never believe. Too many experiences that convince you otherwise. But then there's you. And there's every reason to let go off fear, to s

That heady mix of what I would like to do versus what I should do. That rhetorical question of yes or no. How do you go backwards when your foot is stuck on the accelerator? You turn my world into a ball of questions. You take ordinary everyday and make it look incomplete. You start at the end and smile as I try to catch on. You casually slip into my world and don't even look for permission. Simple. Yes. Magical. Yes. And that's where the record gets stuck.

You remember that phone call? The simple question, the complicated answer? You remember that email? The honest confession, the complete denial? You remember that fight? The insane aggression, the innocent surprise? You remember that threat? The blatant force, the meager push-back.You remember that list? The itemized oppression, the stupid assent? You remember the pieces? The gruesome look, the fearful eyes? You remember that blackmail? The suicidal tendency, the gullible night? You remember the desertion? The empty street, the lonely find? You remember the music? The polar confusion, the naive cessation? You remember the silence? The deafening vacuum, the tragic sigh? You remember those tears? The careless laughter, the unassuming plight? You remember the blaming? The careless pin-pointing, the quiet lies? You remember the escape? The casual manipulation, the honest fright? You remember the speed? The near stop, the begging twice? I hope you remember. For, I forget. 

'Everyone has at least one secret that will break your heart.' Each time I meet someone new, it is almost a quest to dig deep enough to see that which makes them who they are. Whenever I have spent the time, I have never been surprised by shallowness or disappointed by predictability. It is because we settle at the surface, because we don't begin to probe, that we aren't awed by just how beautiful ordinary people are.