tonight and on

Have I failed, I wonder. But no-one need answer. The right answer is clear enough. It always is, isn't it. Right there, in front of us. But, we run and run and run from it, as fast as we possibly can.

And we run right back into it.

We just want to feel something real, something tangible, something understandable. But, we have a hard time with the truth. With reality. With what's there. With honesty.

I don't want to know the answers because then I might be excused from asking any further questions. So, we seek the dark when we run, and we stay far enough away from the light that it never really touches us.

We are weak and afraid. I am weak and afraid.
And I have been running from this.

Where I'm getting to, I haven't decided, can't tell, refuse to know. But, all the road signs and maps around here prove to me that this isn't where I want to be getting. But I'm headed there, all the same. And soon, I'll arrive.

I often wonder if the people I've discovered, uncovered, 'created' as it were, aren't better off than I am. But, of course they are. Because their course is always clear, their flaws always apparent, their lives always easy to fix. I can always see into them, into their worlds, into their heads and hopes - and know.

It's me that I can't get my mind around. Can't get my heart around. Can't get this flow around. And so, it overflows around my edges, finds its way in some other place, moves on in a different direction without me. I try to run and catch up, keep up, run along side it, but it's always moving too fast away from me, and I know deep down that the only way I'd stick with it would be to jump back in.

But if I do now, I might not remember how to swim. Because I've been outside the water for so long I've forgotten what the current's like and how deep the bottom falls out and how cold it is inside. And I've forgotten how to swim.

And so, I'm losing it. It's sliding away from me. It's drifting off until it'll be too far away to see, to know, to catch again.

But, for now, it'll be okay. I know this land and this place, these feelings and these fears. And I've come away from them before. And maybe I was in a million little pieces and some of me got left where I'd been and some of me got lost and I never found it again, but I made it all the same.

I wonder what I'll leave, what I'll lose, what I'll never find again this time. Because I know the feeling and I know the way back from here and I know the sacrifice that this land will take from me, whether I'm willing to give it or not. Surviving is the key, and I will do it at all costs.

I know I will.

But I wonder who it'll be who comes out on the other side and I wonder what will still remain of me. I can only wait, as the river drifts away, as the land dries and cracks from the heat, as the fire devours all the dying scrub along the land. I can only wait and see what comes from here because I waited too long to jump in and follow where the water was going. Or maybe I just couldn't comprehend it, couldn't get my mind into it, couldn't ever understand how it was going to flow and flow and flow and one day just flow away from me. Because its all just water moving from here to there in the end, and none of it ever remains for long.

So now, I have only to sit on this rock and wait this one out and see when survival kicks in and gets me out of here. Because I can't fathom what else I might do but stay alive and do what I'll discover is necessary to do.

To be honest, I feel a little broken, already - a little shattered. I know this land is hard and cruel and it will push me on, even when I'm certain I cannot walk. I only hope this time that this desert land doesn't take it all and give nothing in return but callous hands and callous feet and an even darker heart.

Because I don't know what I'll do if it does.