Life Between the Crosshairs

I throw them out there and watch them waver, like heat waves on the desert highway.  They glisten in the light and they shift, changelings with identities other than what I’ve sewn for them.  Gaining strength, they come clearer and take a distinct shape of their own choosing. Vibrant nothingness that contains the everything within its transparent womb. Then suddenly, they dissipate and scatter to the winds.

Those words, they return like poltergeists, wreaking havoc in the simplicity of happiness. They flock home, full of those good intentions you’ve spawned, but changed - vengeful, evil. They bang the cupboards of your soul and stroke the slumbering cheek of contentedness. Lingering, watchful murmurs search for the rip in your fabric, a weakness, a defect. One tiny rent and they transform into daggers, arrowheads seeking the soft tissue of your underbelly. They almost  always hit their mark, digging in and twisting until you scream.

They’re here, laying in wait outside my skin. I can see them taunting my security and I am frustrated. With each one my tongue forms, I try to ease the burn of the one before, smooth over the punctures in our shields and pave another route. But I am paralyzed. We’ve cast them out, given them life and limb and then dilegently pounded them with the iron hammers of perception. Twisted them into glistening weapons, sleek spears dipped in the poison of misunderstanding. Tentacles that twist around our hearts, barbed and rooted in impossibility.

And we are halted. Words infused with good intentions are tarnished, dripping in the blood, sweat and tears of our efforts - mocking, hailing, screaming. We are locked in our private prisons, arrested by these simple words, powerless to create another to catch the first. Restrained, I can do no more than run in this circle - detesting those paradoxical creations and gagging on their tails. Silenced.

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