Volver

Has it really been since August?

I didn't realize I was this busy, but I must be, to have so heartlessly forgotten to come by and say hello. Perhaps I've finally run out of stories. Perhaps--at last--I'm speechless.

Or maybe it's all true: I am driven only by whim and lust and all the excitement's gone. Left to my own devices, am I taciturn, somnolent, and trite?

Where hath that spark now gone that once lighted my way to fresher, wilder grounds? Where is the crisp, cool smell of morning? The night has taken hold of my heart and even against the dark sky, darker clouds obscure what little light the stars might give. And already having leaned toward darker tastes, the shroud of anonimity brought by moonless autumn nights lets me walk down desolate streets in the valley, smoking and humming tonelessly tunes only I any longer recognize of all those whom I have known who still live. The dead! They took my songs.

Or maybe it is this well down which I went looking for wishes--only to find slimy toads.

These are the days we go through--when we really feel the "human condition" for which only humans would feel sorrow. Most other creatures seem just happy to be alive. And much like clouds and rainbows, these days pass--into nights that lead to newer days.

And all our days have lighted fools...

I should be a fool! Happy, friendly, outgoing, dancing till my legs can't hold me. I should chat it up with perfect strangers on the bus I now never take because it is beneath me. What putrid drivel! Were I but man enough to know I cannot be an island entirely to myself, I would be far wiser and less strong--and I would make a fool of myself everyday for a bit. No need to cry all the tears of the day in two minutes on your bed--they happily come as they are needed. No need for stiff upper lips that feel so frigid, lifeless and unloving when other lips should come looking for a kiss. Ne'er would I be afraid to hold another hand outstretched to grasp mine own only to keep mine clean.

No.

I should be like a child, who sees with true enthusiasm as genuinely new every moment that his eyes can manage to stave off that fiend: sleep--and not hiding in the cave I call a skull in the darkness of my dreams. I should run barefoot on hot sand, suffering the pain only because I can almost already feel the cool, salty water as it jumps and crashes and dances and flies just on the other side. I should be free of me! A stranger in a strange land seeking just to steal a quick, furtive smile from a shy lad or lass as I whistle past, my smile the beacon that shall guide their own unto the world.

I should be green like the grass; white like the puffy cottonballs the wind shapes into all kinds of things like I used to do to my father's shaving cream; blue, blue! I should be blue like the air all in between... strong, and gentle; cool, and intimate; and there, always there, never gone.

THAT, I should be: permanent. I should be constant.

Or I may simply be a single drop of rain.