Ramblings

I’m so tired.1

Sleep droops from my lids, swooning my sorrow into sighs of slumber. 2

I can see them, in the mirror. Long, burdensome creases, yellowing the breath in my cheeks. I can see them. The lines, jutting from the corners of my lips, parted in nothingness, too weak to crumble or cheer. 3

Now, that I look back on it, the time seems so heavy. So eternally boundless, so crushing. 4

I thought: It will come, just wait. Tiredness comes from the fatigue of simply existing. But my body, my sentiments, they will adjust. The clock will one day seem no longer a madman, but a friend, a helper. One day.5

That day has yet to come. I sit, faintly alive, on my bed. Staring at the lines which play on the shadows projected on the ceiling. I observe, silent, mindless, cloudless. I can hear that ticking. That ticking, which never really became my friend. That ticking, which burns all love, and hopes, and regrets into shivers of nothingness. That ticking by which we all return to ashes, destined to blow away on windy days or on the currents of turbulent oceans. 6

I thought to myself: What am I now? My eyes seem to droop farther with these seconds. Eternity seems so suffocating, so disabling. I can barely move…I scarcely feel the blood pumping through my arms, my feet. I’ve laid so still here, for so long. Am I still alive? Am I still afloat in reality? But the pressure of the ticking forces me deeper in my slumbering predicament. 7

Can you remember? Can you remember, Marie? 8

A faint smile criss-crosses the crinkles of my misery. I remember. I remember, maybe all too well. The days, the smells, the movements, the sounds. When we sat, together, on beaches of Spain, Greece, Italy. And we would count the grains in the sand. We would always lose the numbers, forgetting our samples amidst the torrents of their brothers. 9

And then we would laugh! We would laugh, and only seagulls mirrored our cries. 10

The sea. Swooshing. A giant of song, of peace; a lady of mystique, of mischief. She was our best friend, Marie. Our companion, our lover, our gamer. She dealt all the cards! 11

And those sunsets. When, with sighs dripping with melancholy, we watched sparkles flow with the waves, tints of rose and yellow splash their serenity on the sky. We watched… 12

I clutch, with hands of air, to those moments. Ah, but this body. I cannot shift, cannot move. Its heaviness keeps me entangled in the only sea near me now. ‘Tis a turbulent one. Turbulent, murky thing; which has no clear bottoms, no days of rest. 13

Its waters are continuously shocked by thunders and lamps of angry light. 14

And here, I am, Marie! Alone in this ugly, treacherous sea, where sun was cloaked with a dirty blanket, and moon was chased away with wooden sticks. 15

Oh, oh, but do you remember? Do you remember Angelica? She was a sweet child…so sweet... so sweet. And that time, when we were picking in fields of wild strawberries. The knots of red and green surrounded us, and Angelica would move about the garden, and pick her delicacies. Oh, but always alone! I never did understand her. 16

I hope I understood her enough. I hope, I hope, I prayed enough. But the god I asked for never did listen to my calls. But I remember Angelica. I remember her sweet, ever-present tears. 17

I think a woman has come into the room. I think, but I do not clearly see her. I saw a blur, and footsteps heavily clouded in perfume. Can you see her, Marie? I cannot. But in truth, I have no desire for her form. No desire for that smell, it bothers my delicate slumber. No desire for this room, but that cannot be escaped. Nothing ever can.18

I have learned, Marie, that if there is thought, there are prisons. Prisons, with bars of rusty iron, and fences high as mountains, and guards with looks of devils, with fiery breaths and loaded infernos in their eyes. Men of fire. We are all, men of fire. 19

Ah, but Marie. The tiredness seems to have permeated my heaviness with narcotics. No longer can I speak, can I see with clarity. Life, my dearest, has never been so suffocating. 20

Time, it is. Time has always shown me it would lead here, I suppose. 21

Ta ta, Marie. Or maybe, if fate would have it, hello again. 22