Rainbow Shadows and Phantom Spiders
A story of the eyes
I see things sometimes. I didn’t know other people couldn’t see them so I spoke about the stories my eyes shared with me. We have no secrets. I see things in broad daylight when I’m as sober as a child. I saw things then too.
Prisms of light bend into shadows of lampposts and the occasional ceiling would heave deeper and deeper, closer and closer to my head like an elk in the belly of the beast. Oh and the phantom spiders (fair enough though, I probably see these because they scare they are scary and one must always be alert for spiders). Rows and rows of people shaking their heads at me in perfect time to the melodies dancing from my car stereo. What a laugh we have, my dear little eyes and I.
Though I see colors that don’t belong and strangers dancing to my life’s soundtrack, it’s not nearly as powerpuff-like as it may seem. It’s dark here. It’s a Wes Anderson — Coen Brothers — Tarantino montage. There’s no tip of the iceberg, with the doom and gloom hiding under the surface. No, no, no it’s all there singing and dancing and shooting and burning in the daylight for everyone to see. Only the dialogue isn’t always as good as I’d hope and I’m the only one watching the bloody thing.
I’m a Virgo, which by definition suggests I experience things for the first time more than once, or something like that. But what drives me insane is feeling like a tadpole in a mudslide that never ends — you can’t see anything, it all feels the same and yet you know it must be vastly different because you never stop.
That’s disillusionment for you. You experience, evaluate and conclude — only to do it all over again once you’ve matured a little in time and space. It’s the painful experience of Plato’s cave allegory day in and day out.
And I’ll admit I’m a hot mess most of the time. My brain is like a coke addict with a stoner roommate that just can’t keep up for a body. The crazy hair and poor time management just top it all up for aesthetics’s sake. You can see it can’t you?
Poorly-choiced red curls, disrupted by last night’s sleep, scarf running away with the wind in the opposite direction and trying not to burn my jeans with a cigarette while I stumble to tie my shoes because I forgot to stop walking — god I wish I couldn’t imagine.
And people love it or hate it. Honestly I think it scares the sane ones and intrigues the mentally-agnostic. Those who haven’t yet chosen sides — between those who are apt for survival and those who will crash and burn in a miraculous fashion until there is nothing left. Now I know there must be lifetimes of ember in my eyes and people can smell the flames. It’s exciting to strangers and once they edge close enough to feel the heat of my words they must decide if they want to burn, be burnt or head for the beaches.
I’d scare me, and I do sometimes. The stories my eyes tell me exhaust me and I’m too young to be this tired. I may be 20 but my eyes were previously owned. Or perhaps I’m just a miniverse of the multiverse all wrapped up in too much self-reflection.
L.
