Bang!

Quiet now! The adults are talking. So don’t say a word till the boat stops rocking, and listen to the voice of the voices that you’re mocking.

Is there any chance of it stopping?

I remember once, everything stopped so easy. Now it moves so fast I need a drink to ease me. It’s true, nothing’s pleasing me. I work all day and then I work all night, but there’s nothing to say, nothing to show from the fight. My hands are empty, my heart is too, and I’ve long stopped hoping for an I Love You.

One thing’s for sure, I haven’t stopped dreaming. It’s an unsteady feeling, that when I’m awake I might really be sleeping. Oh God could you take it, off of my shoulders? It’s a burden-sized boulder, a real hand-holder. The kinda thing that makes the young grow older.

Is this what it means to be awake? Because if this is seeing, it’s a gift I’ll forsake. If this is believing, then it’s ignorance I’ll take. Doctor, I’ve made a grave mistake. I read one too many and aged another twenty. I drank far too few and avoided seeing you. Now I don’t see a thing, is this everything? Is this what it means to reach the end of your string?

Bang! It starts over. Teacher, Father, do you remember what I told her? Mother, Officer, is the world getting colder? I don’t trust my Brother, or my Lover, or the Other. I don’t even trust myself. It’s a truth I found atop the tallest shelf. There it was, Bang! And everything started over. Now I know nothing, and anything, and everything you don’t. I’ll do anything you won’t! It’s all I have left. The last trick up my sleeve. That in between the grief, the loss of belief, the innocent relief, a voice that says, “Bite anything with teeth!”

So I’m biting and fighting my way to the top, a motion that makes the boat rock, makes the adults yell, “Stop!”, it’s the voice that you mock, the Siren at her station, my only motivation, the art of creation, the founding of a nation, the urge to stop aging, the hope that in my latest incarnation, I can bear my own damnation. It’s my desperation. My fixation. It’s my last chance.

Bang!

It’s my birthday.