That ever-expanding explosion of injury that lacerates me again and again, finding constant aftermath of the storm in the light of a new dawn. I don’t even know why I keep getting up. It is probably the same reason I kept running and fighting.  Trying to sustain flight in something that cannot fly is exhausting. It has taken so much from me. It has made me compromise precious time, somehow taking from me the things I fight to protect.  Living in a land called panic, developing skills like those of an artful dodger.  Should it be a trophy to be proud of such skills?  Or should it be just a shame that I needed to perfect them? 

Beneath a still watery surface, at great depths, pain wages a war that no one can see.  A universal battle that becomes all that I see, until I demand to subdue it so that I can see beyond its distractions. Believe me, it is short-lived.

There is a young man who keeps trying to make contact with me. He does not know it, but he has answers and wisdom. Time gets turned inside out and the messages have suffered degradation. I struggle to find vital pieces of the message. Sometimes, all I have is microscopic fragments like those Leonard displayed in Dear Heather.  With these very small pieces I try to fabricate a whole bridge, but all I have is Heather, legs, and drink. Is it my fault or his? No matter what, I am he. He is me. It’s true.

Obtaining that which seems unobtainable, I have hiked the long way around. Uncomplaining, steady, without breaking stride, making it seem like the results were just falling like drops of rain, gently watering a life. If I could I would see it now, and although I know that I do see it, I know I am still missing something.

I have to conclude that one can learn so much more from dirt than I ever thought possible.  It has opened the doors to dozens of mathematical questions.  The price you pay sometimes seemingly never ends.  Leonard summed this up well, “Looks like freedom but it feels like death, it’s closing time.”