The sun rose over the disappearing mountains in the rearview mirror. As she gazed into the painted sky Ally wished it was as easy as that. If only I could just paint myself into something picturesque. Despite a longing to change her surroundings on a dime, Ally knew her life wasn't half bad. Heck, not many people are so fortunate as to not have to worry about how they're going to pay for college. And what about those who earnestly desire to just leave their home, if only for a day, to escape the pain and enter into a new reality? Yeah, she knew that, all things considered, her life was pretty great. Still, she couldn't seem to shake the feeling that what she was leaving was her destiny only to slowly slip a few steps closer to her death.
Hours passed in an instant as Ally chose to sleep her prodding inhibitions away. When she awoke the mountains were gone and in their place lay a boring landscape of dust and tumbleweeds. Sleeping seemed to have had an opposite effect; now she felt worse. I miss the mountains and the wondrous feeling they give me just by towering over me in the distance. Her new life would hold mountains of a different flavor, the emotional barriers that would have to be climbed to just survive.
A crow cawed just outside her window. Ally's heart skipped a beat as she trembled inside.
"Oh, you're awake," her mom said from the driver's seat. "Good. We're about to stop. Trevor has to use the bathroom and your father and I need to stretch our legs."
"Where are we?" Ally's voice cracked as it was still waking up.
"Well, we drove through Amarillo while you were asleep and that was probably about thirty minutes ago. So," Ally's mom paused, thinking to herself, "that would put us about 30 miles west of Amarillo."
Friday, March 2, 2018
Wednesday, February 7, 2018
Hubris
It's been centuries, no millennia and more, that we've been reaching for something we can't grasp. We try to hold You inside our hands or paint You into our art but You cannot and will not be contained. We humor ourselves, saying own being cannot be shrunk and packaged into a ready-made box, but yet we're convinced you're less? How can this be? How can we claim to push to the corners the very broom that sweeps us into place?
I'll try to grasp and reach for things I cannot see. Things that I can only feel with fingertips that are beyond my dreams. How can I be sure of anything if I can barely even sense a fingernail of Your being? I know You're out there and somehow in here. I cannot convince myself that I've done (or ever will do) enough for You to consider me one of Your own. It's beyond me. You're beyond me. You escape accurate description. How did You even come up with this idea of coming here to experience these things? You came from outside of it all to a place where expiration is normal. How did you even fit inside these walls that we've created?
There is so much here that doesn't make sense and I thank You for that. I know I cannot fully know You here and I thank You for that.
I'll try to grasp and reach for things I cannot see. Things that I can only feel with fingertips that are beyond my dreams. How can I be sure of anything if I can barely even sense a fingernail of Your being? I know You're out there and somehow in here. I cannot convince myself that I've done (or ever will do) enough for You to consider me one of Your own. It's beyond me. You're beyond me. You escape accurate description. How did You even come up with this idea of coming here to experience these things? You came from outside of it all to a place where expiration is normal. How did you even fit inside these walls that we've created?
There is so much here that doesn't make sense and I thank You for that. I know I cannot fully know You here and I thank You for that.
Wednesday, January 31, 2018
Existentialist Meanderings inside before a Blood Moon's Eclipse
Hollow words. Empty promises.
Are we all guilty? Does everyone have someone who could point to our own?
Why do some of us turn and run so quickly from our blindspots? Why can't we live in a more transparent world? Why do we let fear step into the driver's seat?
As a blade of grass I whisper vaporous notes on tracing paper. Who knows what anyone will see or read in the future? Perhaps a gas station receipt will be the lonely trace of a tyrannical superpower. Maybe love will endure unto the end. Or maybe there isn't even an end.
Maybe this is practice for what comes next. Maybe the dust and mostly nothingness that we're made up of is really something after all. Perhaps all this water inside us is feeding some unknown source beneath us. Maybe we're all jogging around a small floating ball, cheering to good health, clinking glasses, and waiting in lines for nothing. Maybe life is meaningless except for the meanings we ascribe ourselves.
Maybe there really is nothing between our fingertips.
But
I wish something were interlocking between my own fingers. What of my body is really mine to claim though anyway?
Perhaps I'm just throwing existential thoughts to the wind and the binary code that hides my message will hardly be seen outside these walls.
Maybe I'm dreaming, or it could be that I'm just a dream.
I have a recurring thought,
or an idea perhaps,
that maybe one day
I'll wake up inside a dream.
Could it be true?
Are we all guilty? Does everyone have someone who could point to our own?
Why do some of us turn and run so quickly from our blindspots? Why can't we live in a more transparent world? Why do we let fear step into the driver's seat?
As a blade of grass I whisper vaporous notes on tracing paper. Who knows what anyone will see or read in the future? Perhaps a gas station receipt will be the lonely trace of a tyrannical superpower. Maybe love will endure unto the end. Or maybe there isn't even an end.
Maybe this is practice for what comes next. Maybe the dust and mostly nothingness that we're made up of is really something after all. Perhaps all this water inside us is feeding some unknown source beneath us. Maybe we're all jogging around a small floating ball, cheering to good health, clinking glasses, and waiting in lines for nothing. Maybe life is meaningless except for the meanings we ascribe ourselves.
Maybe there really is nothing between our fingertips.
But
I wish something were interlocking between my own fingers. What of my body is really mine to claim though anyway?
Perhaps I'm just throwing existential thoughts to the wind and the binary code that hides my message will hardly be seen outside these walls.
Maybe I'm dreaming, or it could be that I'm just a dream.
I have a recurring thought,
or an idea perhaps,
that maybe one day
I'll wake up inside a dream.
Could it be true?
Sunday, December 31, 2017
Thursday, November 30, 2017
Mundane Rotten Gray Words
What does it take to travel far without leaving oneself behind? Bright colors lie beyond the horizon but they can seem so far away when sleep beckons from less than a room away. I'm searching for something unknown in my mind and so how am I to know when to call back the search party? How do I know when to stop and where to go? Will I ever even know if I've found it?
What am I looking for? Daily my movements are full of bright colors and big ideas but once I wake from the exhaustion after work I can't seem to find them anymore. I return to my notebooks, my journals, or any other outlets and there is very little left save for a few mundane tints and shades of gray. I want to paint the walls but not to paint myself into a corner unless someone else is nearby. I'm like a disaster movie playing on a VCR with the sound on mute. It's grainy and there is some semblance of ripe ideas but they can't escape if no one can find the remote, or perhaps even better if someone could find a digital copy of this film and a television that isn't analog on which we could enjoy it.
No one will read this for clues, and even if they do their search will likely be fruitless.
Gray words slipping through my fingertips, dripping down my brow, and falling onto deaf ears. Are you listening or just hearing? And even more, am I speaking or just making grunting and groaning sounds? Catch the vaporous smoke escaping that is all that remains from the once lit match.
Slippery.
Elusive.
Unsubstantial.
Gone.
A pigeon feather floating just above the fresh volcanic ash.
What am I looking for? Daily my movements are full of bright colors and big ideas but once I wake from the exhaustion after work I can't seem to find them anymore. I return to my notebooks, my journals, or any other outlets and there is very little left save for a few mundane tints and shades of gray. I want to paint the walls but not to paint myself into a corner unless someone else is nearby. I'm like a disaster movie playing on a VCR with the sound on mute. It's grainy and there is some semblance of ripe ideas but they can't escape if no one can find the remote, or perhaps even better if someone could find a digital copy of this film and a television that isn't analog on which we could enjoy it.
No one will read this for clues, and even if they do their search will likely be fruitless.
Gray words slipping through my fingertips, dripping down my brow, and falling onto deaf ears. Are you listening or just hearing? And even more, am I speaking or just making grunting and groaning sounds? Catch the vaporous smoke escaping that is all that remains from the once lit match.
Slippery.
Elusive.
Unsubstantial.
Gone.
A pigeon feather floating just above the fresh volcanic ash.
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