Work Undone

Work Undone If we must remember to never mistake plain truths from plain facts, and your truth can’t tear mine apart, can’t use its white bone to rip my blush flesh, then there must be infinite universes to call them residents. And they can’t be exclusive, no bouncer at the door no all-black attire, and, most importantly, they can’t know about the other’s existence.

You see, I am sorry if these words are scaring you. They are the only way I can cope. How you cope, well, that may be a VIP entrance-fee. And I am petrified by the idea that the plain reason behind every single action of ours is a way to cope with our fleetingness. Do you think so? I want you to feel infinite.

When you read my words, do I make you feel? Infinite?

I am terrible at endings and think I might just stop here, at times my hand won’t let me end the sentence. You know when you ruminate, and you have gotten so far past the point of chewing your intestines that now you have that taste in your mouth like you’ve been chewing someone else’s dry gum for three days? And it might be different if the taste was the taste of your own spit.

But because it isn’t, you have a disappearing thought, that occurs after the thought that you’ve already forgotten. But this kernel brings maybe the slightest bit of consolation while you dry-heave. Sometimes I question if God, wherever she is, doesn’t let you keep that kernel on purpose.

Maybe if you shoved it into your pockets, the endless universes would get instant IM’s or whatever they have out there, notifying them that they aren’t alone.

It’s like, when I think why can I imagine an atmosphere where the sky is a mirror, if it truly doesn’t exist? Who is letting our minds go there?

It’s like when you have to make the decision of forcing yourself to stop thinking like that, and then the engine of the train shrieks so loud, it does it for you. Like when you ask for a sign, and every time you see something to make meaning of, you convince yourself coincidence is the devil.

Why is man so dire to know the whats of the sky? Is that, too, a decision?

You’d think maybe we’d have wings if it was our business. We’d be half-

ravens or doves, and the half-crows would get crumbs thrown at them in elementary school courtyards. Do you think religion is a selfish act? I think I might just end here before I say anything that will make you dry-heave, also. I feel the need to apologize for the distances my mind has been running.

Sometimes I feel so much pity. Like when I see that anonymous man sitting on a bench all by himself, and I’m running late, and I’ve got such a crippling migraine I can see my own eyes, all I can think of are the lost stories I will never watch smoke out of his mouth. The only way I get myself to stop shaking is to think he probably never has these thoughts when he sees a young girl with deer eyes. Or when I see my mother sighing every time she gets off the phone. Maybe it’s a habit. Everything we do is to convince ourselves otherwise. Like when I think, right now, I’m going to wear a short, flowy dress with no shorts on underneath, or I’m going to walk around the house naked because when I am too old to excuse that, I will have this photograph. Or when I quell myself with the reminder that when I go crazy, I won’t remember what I would’ve said to a mean old man at the ticket booth, telling me I need to have my cash out faster next time. I told you I am terrible at endings.

Can patterns still be cycles if they eventually, always end? I want to photograph the old woman in the grocery line crying like an infant. She, too, will be a cyclical wheel. Though, this time, I tear off a notebook ear and remind myself to pick this back up.