Today, I Was Brave
It was terrifying
I am the Colorado River in southern California. The flow of ideas is a trickle at best, something like the rhythm of a faucet that is only ever mostly off. I am mostly off.
Better mostly off than hardly on, despite the fact that both strings of letters describe the same thing. What I am is something greater than nothing. Maybe the bar is low; perhaps, it is rising above the floor.
When I was a child, I thought in black and white and sometimes grey, but I have come to realize that the world is devoid of meaning when comparison ceases to exist.
“Don’t compare yourself,” they say, but I must. What am I, if not more than empty space? Who am I, if not more than a waste of it?
Feeling is hard, so I usually choose not to. Severe trauma provides me with a choice, it seems, that most are forced to journey through life without.
“I just don’t know how you do it,” they say, but I do. I flick the light switch behind my eyes and then walk away. The key is to give the impression that someone is home. Someone. Just not me.
Not me. I am out walking beside the water and burying my toes into soft, sepia sand. I am smiling at the sun. I am singing. I am flying.
Someone is home. Just not me.
