Sometimes I get impatient, though. With the future, with people, with myself. Mostly with myself, in regard to other people. I’m bubbling with things to say, but none of them have quite the right ring in my mind. I want to be honest, but I never am for fear of what people will think. It’s not that I lie, cause I don’t; I just don’t say eighty percent of what I think. It’s like when you’re thinking of something you’d really like to say, and it’s true and really fine, but you know that once the words are exposed to air they will take on a new color and will paint you like someone who is just trying to get attention, in one way or another. And after a few jabs from others, you’ve learned--like a puppy learning which couch is ok to sleep on and which is the nice one he should stay away from—you’ve learned what to speak aloud and what to save back to reveal only in your diary tucked safe under your pillow at home.
Cause everyone has words trapped in their filter, struggling to free themselves as the winds of thought race by, but stuck fast by the mesh that regulates words to guard the speaker’s fragile feelings. You know, nothing’s worse than something hurtful someone else says that was brought on by something stupid that you said, cause you know that if you just hadn’t said it that never would have happened so you deserved it. Then sometimes it’s the stupid things that other people say. The things they say that hurt a bit or make me a bit angry, even though they genuinely meant no harm and they just said it cause they don’t know. And then I have to talk myself down and remind myself that I can’t fault them for saying what they said, cause they can’t know if I don’t tell them, and I won’t tell them. I won’t tell them because they don’t ask, and that’s fine with me. Because it’s a lot of work to dislodge those words from the brain-filter, my mind-mesh; that really good-quality filter that just doesn’t let go of the grime it collects. Won’t release it. Though, I have to admit, I do love gently cleaning the filters of others. To listen to their secrets and joys and fears. I’m more of a hesitant lock-pick, though, than a filter-cleaner. You don’t have to tell me but please do. I don’t expect you to tell me but you can. I’m good at sympathy, if that’s what you want. I’m good at being mad at someone or something on your behalf, if that would help. I’m good at being excited for you, if you have good news that you want to talk and talk and talk about. I'll hear about your vices and not judge, cause I've had my share too. I'll keep your secrets; I'll hear of your darkest times and pray for you (whether or not you think it will help). I want to be in your head, but I don’t want you in mine. I suppose that’s not fair. Which is why I just lock-pick, never trying to kick in the door if my kit doesn’t work. No, I’m done. I’m done and that’s fine and I get it, cause you never know how someone will react to what you don’t say. Sometimes you risk it, sometimes you don’t. Most times people don’t. Maybe not because they really don’t want to, but it takes a long time to get past the small talk.
I’ve always hated small talk, but I suppose it’s necessary. And for as much as I hate it, I guess I use it a lot. If I weren’t afraid of being intrusive, of how people would react, I would say things that mean more than “How was your weekend”. I’d say things like, “Are you tired? I'm tired. So tell me. How's life? What have you been thinking about? Gosh, we haven't talked in awhile. Or have we even met? What’s your name? Your real name? The one that pleases your tongue to speak, that mystifies you with the simple beauty of its sound and syllables? Well, you don’t have to tell me now. It takes thought. Just tell me what resides in the deepest recesses of your soul. We'll start there, and get to names later. After all, I'm sure you don't remember me. In fact, I'm not sure you even know me. I'm a completely new person, you know. I even look different. Maybe it's just my mirror. I think it's broken. But what about you? Have you changed? Do you want to change? Or are you simply striving for consistency? How different are you from two years ago? Last year? Last week? Yesterday? Rumbling, tumbling earthquakes come and leave chaos in their wake, but God's moving gently, like a sunrise. And the sunrise can make even the most chaotic ruins look beautiful. What color are your ruins in the sunlight?”
But somehow I think my torrent of words would scare people. I know I can be eccentric. Sometimes I’m so caught up in my head, I drown in it. Always dreaming of gray velvet and Africa and starburst guitars and poetry. There’s so much inspiration in my head, but it hardly ever gets channeled through my fingertips.
I think I’m becoming one of “those people”, you know. “Those people”, that you think you’d never be, or aren’t. But I am and it’s not necessarily a bad thing; it just is. And when I watch other people who I used to be, they are the new “them” and it’s such a strange feeling, watching myself like that. I watched her and listened to her and observed as people interacted with her and I swear her face changed before my eyes and it was me four years ago, with my long brown hair, clutching a sketchbook full of amateur manga. It’s still eerie, when I think about it—how much she is like I was. And remembering the view through my fourteen-year-old eyes, I can see how I, the way I am now, would have looked to myself then. “That girl”. I’m “that girl”, but now I can see that it’s not really like I thought “that girl” would be. And now, the girl who is the clone of my fourteen-year-old self…she is “that girl”; the other kind. Maybe she’s not an exact clone, though. I’d like to think, even when I was younger and trying so hard to conform to the anti-conformists, that I retained some uniqueness. Oh well; it hardly matters now. “Life is how it is, not how it was.” I was once lost in a wood. It was many years ago, I think. Maybe yesterday. Or maybe it was a dream. But it was so vivid in my mind that still part of me believes it was real. Starlight filtered through the branches, and moonlight too, making strange patterns on the ground. The tree trunks were washed pale by the soft glow against the blackness of the forest. I moved slowly, trying in vain to press my bare feet soundlessly into the soft earth. The loam shifted beneath me, and the silver-green leaves whispered in the cool breeze. Goosebumps rose on my forearms, but it was not the cold that chilled me. I could hear words in the wind-whispers; intelligible language from the branches above. They said my name, singing it softly again and again, like some melancholy minor lullaby. Or a dirge. I could feel my body slow its pace. I looked up, my head tilting dreamily, my eyes blinking in a tranquil, almost demure way. My blood was sluggish in my veins. My mind was foggy, and I could no longer recall why I had been afraid. I could no longer recall my own name; for now the trees whispered words foreign to me. Foreign, but tinkling and musical and somehow I knew what they meant. Mesmerized, I watched my hand reach out slowly before me. A smile broke on my lips as a pale, glowing branch reached out to take my hand, twirling me slowly in a mysterious waltz. Other branches brushed me, their rough wooden fingers gently tracing my skin. I smiled at my faceless dance partners, my feet lithe for once as I was gracefully passed from tree to luminous tree, dancing my way deep into the darkness of the wood. Mystery surrounded me. I breathed it in like air; I reveled in it like the greatest joy. My heart began to beat to the rhythm of the wood as the dance became part of me, as natural as walking. The silver-green leaves left glowing trails on a canvass of black as I spun, hypnotizing me with their elegant designs. My head was full of clouds; dark but beautiful clouds with the fragrance of rain and the silver sketches of moonlight around them. They obscured all coherent thought and left me with only pungent feelings of mysticism and romance and melancholy magic. My soft smile never wavered as I took in the colors and lights through half-closed eyes; my dance never faltered through slow-motion dips and sways, twirls and bends as flowing as a willow branch in the wind. The trees danced and danced and danced and drew me away, but suddenly I was spun into a clearing of darkness, and my partners no longer held me in their friendly grip. I still saw their glow around me, but as I stepped toward them they faded into the black, and I was alone. I cried out, the rhythm of my heart faltering as the musical whispers ceased and oppressive silence settled in. I staggered, pushing my hands in front of me, searching for something to grasp. I found nothing. I shut my eyes and opened them again, but there was no difference in the void before me. It was so dark. So empty. Where was I? The fear that had been suppressed before welled up in me again as I felt sinister shapes all around me. I saw them too, phantoms in the black, moving and shifting nearer and nearer until they washed up against me and disappeared, figments of my over-active psyche. Once I realized that there was nothing around me but darkness and silence, I watched the shapes my eyes created and I felt strong, as each one of them broke into nothing against me, like waves upon the face of a cliff. I stood and walked among the blackness, feeling as if it were an actual, ethereal being. I spun around, hearing the swish of myself, my heart jumping a bit when I imagined that I might step over some edge and fall, fall, fall. It only made me giddy, and I strode confidently into each dusty demon that dared to write in front of me. Scattering each one until I no longer feared what lurked there, I felt stronger than I have in a long time.
I’ve tried to do it again since then. Though the trees behind my house don’t glow or dance, that wood would do well enough for experiments in bravery. I stand at the basement door, looking out over the acre of grass before the trees begin, and I try to make my foot step over the threshold. Once or twice I’ve been able to do it, and I’ve been able to walk and step step over the cool grass, but never more than halfway to the woods in the dark. I want to go to the clearing with the tire swing; the one my dog and I go to in the daytime to feel a part of the earth and watch the beams of sunlight slant down through the branches. I want to go there, my romantic space, at night when I may vanquish more ghosts. But I never have quite made it. I suppose it’s a good thing that my glowing trees left me alone in the dark, because I never would have willingly ventured there myself. Even the basement worries me some. I turn out the lights and stand with my back to the wall—to protect myself, you see. My hand hovers over the light switch, because if the monsters come at me I want to be ready. Ready to turn them to ash with a glaring florescent bulb. My eyelids droop; I must prop them open. They are coming closer, each time I blink. I search the shadows, shapes are forming—they rush upon me, disappear before they touch, but I still hide my face. Pounding heart, dripping pours, darting eyes in the black; that rapid breathing—mine or theirs? A bump in the night, out in the hall they wait for me. My morbid brain-children come home to find that, yes, I’m still afraid of the dark.