Life Between the Crosshairs

Today I watched myself.

From a hidden corner I watched as this shell of skin lived.

Dance puppet. Smile on command, raise your eyebrows and feign interest. Move through the day, accomplish this, finish that, start the other.

I watched as “I” moved my hands up and down, extending digits, retracting them. Laying the ridged pads on textures around me and feeling nothing. Disconnected, I peered through my own wet eyes, dulling colors and fading details. Lain aside.

Turn the pages, one by one, take in the words. Black and white impressions that I see when I close my lids, but I cannot ever know what they say. Scan and re-scan, look for the meaning, pretend to invest . . . sleep peasant. Tomorrow is another day.

I watch as my feet lift and lower, planted on the ground, toes splayed - solid. I do not move them. I sit in this darkened corner and I will those ligaments to refuse. Disconnected. They owe me nothing and do not heed my commands.

Chew and swallow. Gnashing teeth, pulverizing what goes in. Over the tongue and down the throat into the gaping blackness. Digest. Make eye contact, show smile lines - say interesting things. Dance puppet.

Motionless motion.

Inner inertia.

Disconnect.

Sleep.

In the quiet darkness I wait for sound. For whispers, for words. The darkness confuses me, I am without orientation, senses or reality, as the world clamors beyond my sanctuary.  It feels just at the end of my fingertips, and I trace the blackness around me.

My hands slip over the fabric of the world, sliding over smooth, even places. These are happy times, memories preserved behind glass that has become dirtied. I pass over them, searching for the real, skipping over the textured linen and reading the snares, the pulls - the tatters.

Searching, sliding, cascading across the surface, frantic fingers search for the key. Scrabbling over the patchwork life until they stop, fingering the edges of a torn reality. I contemplate. In the quiet darkness I keep one thumb posed over the pulse of the beyond. And without decision, I pull.

As the strands let go, straining against my pressure, beams of light curl over the edges. Slivers of real, whispered sounds straining, ripping - my silence ruptured.  Peering, squinting - fighting the brightness of that around me, clanking and tinkling at first - growing louder and thicker until it is roaring over the tears and blowing the threads around me.

Punctured.