I felt some stirring at turning thirty, but I was living in Taiwan at the time, and at least on an adventure, living life! Let's get real here, too : I was turning THIRTY. There is not much to be depressed about THAT. Thirties are GOOD. Young, nimble, but not stupid like a teenager. Hairy chest, but not hairy back. The world still an oyster! Unmarried still something to brag about, not an admission of ansavoriness.
I will not kvetch. I'll say it again : I WILL NOT KVETCH! I still have not had to work for another person or entity for ten, twenty years. I DO have spare time to do things I want to do; write, play guitar or piano, cook, close my eyes and wish I was somewhere else... I am going somewhere else, and soon. 2011. I enjoy the odd-numbered years, those of you who may know me in real life may know this about me. This is it. This is my year. I carve this out for myself, or I carve myself out. I want to go someplace warm. I have knocked out so many looming, overripe obligations this last year, I am ready to treat myself to something warm and pleasant. I will still move my lips to myself when I think about what I want to say to you, but do not want to deal with at that particular moment.
I still have THINGS. I have limited time. I bite my lip and think about a place I visited recently:
Wings bursting out my back, bone shredded, boots torn loose and blood pumping in hot black gouts. Body lifted and carried up high enough that everything is visible at once, smell of burning hair curling through broken glass. Dark puddles fill and vague gray reflections dance in their surfaces, breaking apart and coming together again and again. A dull glow in my eyes still as I hold my breath anticipating the next pain, fingernails digging white and then red half-moons in the palms of my hands, ears filled with the whispering of fluids and flame. I hear a scream
I change
I was
It was lost, it is gone, gone, gone into that dark maw, tongue and lips smacking, hot and obscene. To trade that for this? Great grubby hands reach out and try to snag something to take back inside.
Why do I have to remain in this world in which I feel I do not have a place? I do not fit in anywhere, and the things I want are always out of my reach. It is heartbreaking, almost everyday. I scan the horizon looking for something that will command my interest, and if I find it, it belongs to someone else, or some other time. I feel worthless. I am a waste.
But, then, I found Jesus.
Jesus was living just under the bridge here, and his shopping cart had bright yellow 'caution' tape wound all over it.
I had wandered down under the bridge that afternoon, weaving this way and that with my stainless steel vessel full of liquor and ice clinking peacefully in my grip, looking for an appropriate place to land, should I be forced to fling myself from the bridge if I found myself backed into that particular corner.
I was stumbling around under the shadow of the bridge, looking up at the distant green handrail I would have to hurdle in order to make my statement. How fast would I be traveling at that time? I fancied a graceful (in black and white, and at least 96 frames a second, preferably at night and in the rain) sprint across all four lanes of traffic followed by one long leap/stride stretching to that handrail, and with that one last powerful push against material Earthbound, arc slightly up and out, to sail those few precious seconds through the air, arms pinioning, do-rag aflutter above my wispy tuft of (still pretty much all black - suh-NAP!) hair, legs kicking slightly as trained to do in a swimming pool thirty-six years ago, to float, float, flail, fall fall ..... WHERE?
That was the question.
I didn't want to just land on the grass like a dog turd. ANYONE could do that.
I was reluctant to land in the river itself, there was too good a chance of surviving, and even if I were lucky enough to expire, my corpus magnum would be even more bloated than before I set myself free. When I was weighed at the morgue - THEN WHAT? Bloated, white, waterlogged, an unfair weight, I tell you! TO say nothing about the appearance of my swollen toes, fingers.... STUFF. It would be cold in that water. I did not want to be unfairly judged. I KNOW the people that work there take pictures with their cellphones to post later on some website or other, and I was not going to be made a fool of after my passing.
So, I was looking for a good place to land, preferably a cement pad, or steel rail, and unfortunately most of the places matching these requirements were directly UNDER the bridge, and I could not calculate a way in which to fling myself from the bridge, and then drift back under the platform from which I launched myself. Not without a gliding device, elastic bands, or an unusually stiff wind. It wouldn't be easy. I began to consider a length of rope - If it were long enough to allow for the sprint across the highway and subsequent flight, but would deny too much horizontal progress, and create a return arc - but how? I stared up, up up high at the towering green steel girders, and took another drink, imagining if I were to tie the rope much HIGHER than street level before my flinging took place ? -
I was then interrupted by a voice.
...
But, then, I found Jesus.
Jesus was living just under the bridge here, and his shopping cart had bright yellow 'caution' tape wound all over it.
I had wandered down under the bridge that afternoon, weaving this way and that with my stainless steel vessel full of liquor and ice clinking peacefully in my grip, looking for an appropriate place to land, should I be forced to fling myself from the bridge if I found myself backed into that particular corner.
I was stumbling around under the shadow of the bridge, looking up at the distant green handrail I would have to hurdle in order to make my statement. How fast would I be traveling at that time? I fancied a graceful (in black and white, and at least 96 frames a second, preferably at night and in the rain) sprint across all four lanes of traffic followed by one long leap/stride stretching to that handrail, and with that one last powerful push against material Earthbound, arc slightly up and out, to sail those few precious seconds through the air, arms pinioning, do-rag aflutter above my wispy tuft of (still pretty much all black - suh-NAP!) hair, legs kicking slightly as trained to do in a swimming pool thirty-six years ago, to float, float, flail, fall fall ..... WHERE?
That was the question.
I didn't want to just land on the grass like a dog turd. ANYONE could do that.
I was reluctant to land in the river itself, there was too good a chance of surviving, and even if I were lucky enough to expire, my corpus magnum would be even more bloated than before I set myself free. When I was weighed at the morgue - THEN WHAT? Bloated, white, waterlogged, an unfair weight, I tell you! TO say nothing about the appearance of my swollen toes, fingers.... STUFF. It would be cold in that water. I did not want to be unfairly judged. I KNOW the people that work there take pictures with their cellphones to post later on some website or other, and I was not going to be made a fool of after my passing.
So, I was looking for a good place to land, preferably a cement pad, or steel rail, and unfortunately most of the places matching these requirements were directly UNDER the bridge, and I could not calculate a way in which to fling myself from the bridge, and then drift back under the platform from which I launched myself. Not without a gliding device, elastic bands, or an unusually stiff wind. It wouldn't be easy. I began to consider a length of rope - If it were long enough to allow for the sprint across the highway and subsequent flight, but would deny too much horizontal progress, and create a return arc - but how? I stared up, up up high at the towering green steel girders, and took another drink, imagining if I were to tie the rope much HIGHER than street level before my flinging took place ? -
I was then interrupted by a voice.
...
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