To Stumble Upon Sentiment

Like a seed, we grow  in darkness, rooted to the womb, soaking silently. Not doing anything, not becoming anything, existing; present in the warmth of this place. But yet we tug open the curtains, tell our children to play outside, plug our ears to their protests, crane their heads to the sun, Tell them never to look away, even when their eyes dry out, even when the ground gives way, even if their heart stops beating. You tell them if they look long enough  all the darkness in them  will go away,  all the sin they were born of.  But there’s no light without shadow, and it condenses, spherical, lodged in their throat,  choking them as you watch blindly.

The air-con blew and took my warmth away, stripped the moisture from my tongue and the taste of them with it. And I can feel one body against mine - I can feel the borders of my entirety and all pressed against  but not given into. All the pressure, some of the body; most the mind; most unrelenting; some divine, all caught in my throat and pushed down ever further -   Deeper and deeper and deeper into my own depths, throttled by my own hands around my own neck - discomfort in comfortable emotion, Until I craft the music,  touch the light, shape the cadence of my strewn together woes, plucked from my wanting memory...

I bought a watch recently, and never have I been so astutely aware of how much I check the time. My mobile phone I glance  at many times, but,  with many uses, who’s keeping track of why one picks it up in a day. But with a watch, I know; I know I felt my existence  wear thin like paper,  considering if I’ve done enough  this hour to deserve the next.

Beyond the river, bubbling over the horizon -  the low grumble of civilisation. The barks and howls of conclusions, short-come, and tails of grandeur always two lengths ahead. But I rest upon the petals, fallen young, briefly captured in a moment I wasn’t born to. Drinking in the intensity of this time and this place and this treasure, long-forgotten amongst the noise.

Bites out of hours; Swallowing seconds; Minutes sprinkled like garnish. So much time  falling down my throat; settled in my stomach - Upset; unsure if I chewed enough times or treasured each taste. Or if I could trust each hand that peeled chopped, and stirred. Their time intertwined, poured into mine, gulped down my gullet.

I miss myself when I’m not here; I kiss the corners of the cell I led me into; trapped within, embraced between the bars, to have and to hold ‘til life rips us part.

My heart beat; the breathing bellows  to my fire. My blood; the trickling waterfall to my lake. My lungs absorbing the universe that I ignore. Neglect is a special skill  of mine. How can I love  another body when I run mine dry. How can I let the kindle burn to ash. Let the air turn stale inside me. Let my hair  lose its shine - my nails break. The rhythm of my heart become merely a whisper. Beating, begging, tapping at my chest; “Let me out, Let me breathe, Let me flow again.”

I adore the smell of the rain. Not the rain itself, per say. but what it touches, makes transparent. Makes glimmer with a liquid coat, like  resin, preserved for a second, until all melts and shrinks to paste and gives way to the warmth of the rain. Foliage, once dry and cracked,  discarded, now a river of orange and brown, all together emitting reams up reams of that sweet smell of wet ground. And never do I stop to think, if I smell the oak, the maple, the pine. Under the affections of the downpour, all is as sweet as nectar as bold as wine.

"Someone is coming; look busy", she whispered palm affectionately cupping my left ear, arm wound around my waist tracing my hip bone. If I knew no better, I might have thought that she loved me. But seduction is her weapon of choice -  intimacy the rug she pulls away when I've found my footing in a world of things and events and places, with people to see and adventures to be had and so so much "to live for"...

The body is a barrier, opaque, impermeable, seven layers of skin wrapped around soft innards, blood, vessels, organs. And when I reach down my throat, grasp for my own heart, I come up empty, like it wriggled and slipped from my claws. As if my nails had been coated in my own juices, the saliva of my gluttony and the blood of my wrath. But there was no other games to play -  none that mattered, anyway.