Unclear
Deep breaths, shattered truths.
Rookie decisions, second-guessing.
Final endings, broken forever.
Seizing strength for the movements my body proceeds with to ascend up against a thin rope that shakes as if unsure, I go quiet. Along with my anxiously, thick coiled thread copying me with a mock, I thrust beyond on my predetermined path. Although I don’t know what will happen to me, I think that’s the scariest part of all of this. Young memories and silenced feelings dance around when gazing back at my single piece of curving hope. All the knots and nylon escapers traveling down the path I came smirk at me, but I know that they are going to stay there, as much as I want to erase, to reverse them.
Regret always follows, it effortlessly weighs down in your hollow chest, descends into your empty stomach, and slumps your massive shoulders. You cannot run, you cannot hide, and you cannot forget. Pressuring, uncertain, and dazed, humans live with the moments that they wish they could exchange. Every copper colored coin flung into serene fountains, every hurtling shooting star in absent skies, every eyelash left on coarse cheeks, people wish to go back. Maybe not to save others, but to save themselves.
Now, there are bewildering specks of shy light; lively gratitude fills my captive prison which allows thirsty yearning for the sight of something other than obscurity and somber expectations of myself. The theory of light brightens my soul, and I reach upwards for the rope faster and achingly until the moment where my hands frantically grasp for it but receive pockets of air in return.
Then, tumbling backward into oblivion, I sense the rush around me. Gravity tugs me down aggressively, undertaking the mission without dishonor to suffocate and smother me, executing that my fate will enhance promptly and immediate. Sleep paralysis overwhelms me when I can’t move or speak, so I blankly stare into a vacant space with a bright mind that grips me until I finally decide to surrender.
It feels as if this is the end. I’m at the bottom, this is it.
Though, it can’t be. Someone’s whole life cannot be dedicated to finding it’s ending tunnel, the last glimpse of light to engulf their being. All the planned and unplanned reminders of the existence of life makes a commotion. A cruel planet where nothing makes sense. This is where we spend trips around the sun on, living and breathing until our concluding days that undoubtedly await us.
Like dainty flowers, we´re watching, waiting, falling, and regrowing, over and over again. Flowers never complained or ached with a burden in their chest, they solely waited for their time to blossom into the hidden beauty of the world. A single flower, the same one, over and over again. It is stirred around by the fleeting wind, getting torn apart harshly, stepped on vigorously, and on often occasions, it barely escapes with its´ own life. Still, after all the storms, tornadoes, hurricanes, fires, human error disasters, and whatever else dares to become an obstacle, it keeps surviving. Insignificant, humans are quite similar to those captivating flowers. Always watching, waiting, falling, and finally, regrowing.
Is our fate put in the careful or careless hands of the mighty God we so severely believe and worship or the hands of the insensitive universe that does not seem to care about us? Are we only scientific creations of complex cells that will one day be wiped out, either by our own misdeeds or the instant the universe does not give two glances back?
People assume that’s how it’s supposed to be. That there’s no for sure answer, that everything is a lie from all the viewpoints of which we can imagine and create off of.
Everything is blurry when you examine reality, but under all the specs of every fable spoken to you, the full picture is manifested underneath. Not just a sugar-coated segment, but before you can dig away the dreams and wishes you thought you could have, you’ll have to sit around and wait until the storm passes. We’re silently waiting to be in focus for the photographer to take the picture, but there are so many pictures to be considered.
It’s unclear, to put it clearly. No one is perfect, and no one is imperfect. We can analyze our miniature selves and the enormous world in so many various and intricate ways, it’s hard to tell which aspect soothes and comforts us more as we terrifyingly live on.
Does life stop in the middle of it, like other relationships a person has with the fabricated universe? Everything has to end at some point, right?
Wait, where am I? Did I stop falling? I don’t want to get up from my grim position. Physically, mentally, and emotionally. I don’t want to try anymore. What’s the point? I already know what’s going to arise. I’m going to disappoint myself as well as everyone else and then what? I’ll slowly move on and limit myself with insecurities because it’s easier than trying again. I’ve already been at my highest, but then it all came crashing down, creating a big black hole of nothingness that will one day consume me.
Gazing up at the rickety rope that challenges me with its knots, I taste sprinkles plummeting in intense passing seconds; numerous sprinkles sink quicker, yet harder. Droplets cloud my dull eyes as if shielding me from the truth until I’m struggling to attain oxygen in my system, the rope transpired, and my heartbeat is pounding.
Drowning in my mistakes pilots the hesitant wind out from beneath me in a reckless tsunami of expected actions and crashes back in the face. Just when my organs have given up, and my wild mind goes still, when my troubled soul seems to be leaving my corpse, my pained eyes shoot open.
This will not be the end. I will not allow it. Everything I’ve worked for, everything I’ve come to know and yet to see will not be washed away by the current of vulgar words spoken by today’s society as if they know better then me.
So in regards to myself, I push upwards with my last bit of energy into a better life. Finally, my wet face, from the flooding tides or my salty tears, breaks through the barriers of walls painted with humanity’s deceiving smiles.
Humanity will laugh aloud and cautiously cheer you on, but in the bleak background, the real motives are plainly revealed. They don´t care, they just want to be one of the polite, supportive, and kind people. Just like their parents taught them. Isn’t it quite discouraging when those lessons get left behind at home?
People never want what’s best for you, of course, they don´t. They really only want what merely is best for their future because they have continuously been taught to put themselves first. People want you to fully trust their two-faced performance so that they can half-heartedly and eagerly backstab you while softly muttering sweet-nothing lies. So sweet, they´ll simply rot your teeth.
Gushing out blood from their piercing blade, as if we can’t wait to form a river, we desperately apologize with tender expressions for the unsightly mess we are making. They become astonished at their own tinted hands with blood splattered, scorched up between fingers that earlier had held toxic edges and bright, bold drops that fall into small ponds. They dramatically play the protagonist as if they are traumatized victims who need extra bandages for their unwounded bodies.
Inhaling deep breaths of limitless pride and joy of myself of which I cannot contain, whooshing and crashing sounds lead my attention to an enormous wave surmounting right to me.
“I am going to survive this,” I narrate to myself, but when the hastening water is at its´ peak above me, I continue, “…and maybe I won’t.”
Slashing at my exposed skin, endless waves plunge down with anger and fierce determination to get me, to destroy me while still departing on its’ course, but not forgetting to take me with it. Unconsciousness demands to take over my submerged head, and the nonexistent empathy of the ocean is spinning. That’s when I know my fate, the part everyone is looking forward to knowing. It decides how the surreal story ends in the last words, so the truth comes to the surface, or yet it had sunk, and I had-
Inlandia: A Literary Journey 