Scream

Remember the wonder you felt, stepping off the porch and into the dimming, cooling air? Remember turning with a delighted smirk, your eyes full of knowing and laughter?

Well.

All that is behind you now. You think back on it and for a minute, you can almost capture every rapturous detail. Your heart flutters just thinking about it. Your foot taps and you sigh.

You blow out all the anxiety and tension.

Every five minutes, you suck in a deep breath, and you let it out.

"Good god how much longer is this going to last?"

You think:

65 years of this shit?

And then you remember the newspaper articles, and the talks in all your classes, and the sad looks people gave you for months afterward.

But maybe you finally understand.

Maybe, at the time, you really understood.

You think:

Jesus christ if I don't get out of here now I'll...

"What?"

And your foot keeps tapping, tapping, tapping.

And the clocks and watches of the world keep ticking ticking ticking. And maybe if you can tune out the hum of the lawn mower outside, and the spiking pitch in the speakers voice, maybe for a few minutes you can be where you want to be, smelling the hot humid air of India and drinking in the rich colors and textures of saris and mosaics and vendors' stalls. For a few minutes, maybe you can just get out of this.

With the steady hum and the class that reminds you:

Nothing is ever going to change.

Just give up.

And every day is like this. The same song thudding in your chest, overriding your heart beat.

And you think:

If I don't get out of here now I'll...

Jump back a week, a weekend, a half hour away in a messy garage with a lit blunt and a good friend. Jump back to sunshine so thick it pools and lays on the floor like a blanket. Jump back to evening time in the suburbs, where everything is quiet and when the moon starts to rise the frogs fill the silence with their steady croaking.

Jump back into relaxation. Jump back to the stained, cleaned carpet and the curtains that have been hanging for thirty years, at least, since the house was built.

Your feet on the sidewalk, up the step to the front door, and so little has changed, but on the inside, where your childhood friend welcomes you with something new, a baby stuck to her exposed breast...everything is new.

Life.

Life and death.

And you can feel every moment just sucking the life out of you.

and you think,

"If I don't get out of here, I'll..."

but you can never finish the sentance.

You think back on everything you learned in school. You read the literature that inspired your founding fathers. You read all the great books of the western world.

And finally you understand: people just like to feel like they're doing something.

But you know, deep deep deep down. So deep down your head aches with the knowledge-- you know that it doesn't stand for anything.

It's just in vain.

it's just vanity.

And every day the sun rises. And every day the sun sets.

And every day you remember: In 7th grade I did a report on this.

you remember: In high school, I read that book and it wasn't really that great.

you remember: last year, we talked about this.

So every day just blurs together. Even the time you spend, eyes closed, shoving the every day out of sight so you can finally re-lax and take a breath of air that isn't stale or overcharged with perfume.

So every day, it just feels the same.

Every day, you swear to yourself,

"If I don't get out of here, I'll..."

Every day, you remember learning this last(week/month/year).

So you ask yourself:

Is this it?

and god. if it is?

"If I don't get out of here, I'll..."

and god doesn't have an answer.

And you don't either.

And all the questions you ask, trying to get at the heart of this thing, well, they just tell you that they don't know.

No one knows.

So the truth comes out: You must be Alone.

and you whisper to yourself as you're falling asleep...

"If I don't get out here, I'll..."

So now every day has blurred together.

And you can still remember the porch and the crisp scent of the fall air and the way the leaves crackle when you step on them in October. And you can still see the shining joy in his eyes, but you know...

That's all behind you now.

So every day.

Every.Day.

You do the same thing. You talk to the same people. You tell the same joke over and over and over again. And they laugh but they don't realize that you're just waiting for someone to take you seriously.

You haven't been kidding in so long.

And finally you face it:

If this is it?

If this is the rest of your life?

Well, maybe you want out.

and maybe you finally understand a bullet to the head.

Routines. Scheduals. Time Tables. Minutes, hours, seconds. Half-lives. It's all just whiling away your day. Assignments and due dates. Appointments, dates to keep.

All of it just to keep you busy. Just busy enough.

But your foot still taps. And your toes still curl and tingle when you feel coiled in your solar plexus, that tenseness between your shoulder blades.

And then you sigh.

So what happened to the wonder and joy you started out with?

What happened to endless summer days and boundless life and a desire to learn and know and keep asking questions?

The air gets still and hot. Your toe taps. And you close your eyes and plug your ears, trying to drown out the sound of the tick, tick, tick, ticktick, tick of the watches and clocks of the world, reminding you that there are always Obligations.

So tired now your heart just aches.

So tired now your feet drag like bricks.

And you say to yourself,

"If I don't get out of here now, I'll..."