It's 4am again and this doesn't even phase me anymore because I've never been one to let Lady Sleep call me to bed at a reasonable hour because there's something that I crave when the night wraps its somnolent arms around my section of the planet that keeps my eyes open and I've never found it during the day and I doubt I ever will because I'm getting older and my hair is falling out and the world under the sun has fewer and fewer things that I care to envelop myself in beyond the bare necessities of life because I'm well aware that to wander the world like some sort of ghost isn't going to end well for anyone involved but those people drift farther and farther away and don't you dare tell me that we're not alone because that phone I pay too much for hasn't rung in months.

It bothers me to think that some people aren't in photographs in much the same way that I actively avoid them with my bloated, bug-flesh complexion and form because in a world where people take selfies by the hundred to show off the events of their lives it makes these secret people harder to relate to and much harder to market to because we're a little less than human and our stories will be gone after the moment passes because we didn't try to leave something behind and that's the sort of thing we smile at in our sad little ways with dead, empty eyes and make a joking remark about how it wasn't much of a story anyway and that is perhaps the greatest tragedy to ever be thought of because it's not love lost that breaks my heart but the idea that we aren't worthy of being a part of the human race so we stand on the sidelines because even then we just want to see what it looks like to be alive for only a moment.

I've watched the world and it's something I've enjoyed because if I don't stop to notice the too violet plants and the flowers I'll wonder to myself if the world is as grey and empty as I think it is most of the time in my cynical mind that spends too much time wondering if my senses are fading or if it was all just a dream and my memory gets faulty and I forget what it felt like to be taken into a stranger's family for a weekend or to be the only person walking through the open air market blocks long after the only company I have are the snow flakes and the lamp posts and my thoughts and the music that drove the demons out of my head because those creatures were old and my music was just too loud for their comfort and now I live so very far away from all of those things and I start to wonder if this is really all there is to life and if, perhaps, it is the only thing that truly does exist because I'm no longer there to feel them and I become so self important that the world collapses away leaving only myself and the tiny little box that I navigate in my broken, sleepless cycles.

I eventually give up because my mind starts to splinter and the nagging thought that if I just went to bed I'd never walk over the rough, uneven path that magically appears out of history between buildings and it'd be so much easier but I know that I'd miss that sizzle of magic that I should have let go of a long time ago when I realized there was no happy ending but it drives me to leave crumbs that no one will ever see so that maybe, just maybe, a hundred years from now when I'm long since dead and scattered to the winds there will be another person who finds my bones and thinks my thoughts and doesn't feel quite so alone even if in their hands they carry bits of broken threads and a phone that never rings and a thousand other reminders that not everyone turns out to be the hero or the villain of their lives.

Sometimes it's enough to watch them run by. Sometimes it's just enough to have witnessed it.

There's a special place when things hit the fan and you can't properly function so you go through things in a haze because at that point you're living moment to moment instead of working on your five year plan and welcome to the human race because we're all just trying to survive and not be trampled and crushed beneath our failing plans and impossible dreams and the regrets of having never made that step or made that call or made something of yourself until you are punted from the safe place you've made for yourself with your curated friends and your careful routines so when the world shifts you're left out in space with nothing under your feet except the vague notion that you're supposed to be on that planet that is speeding in the other direction.

The world is so small when you're outside of all of the things that used to matter with your state of shock and your crushing grief and the knowing that things cannot will not ever go back to the way things were because there are fewer stars that you'll never see again and the night sky won't ever look the same way it did because the world you live in today will not be the world you live in tomorrow and right now you're not on any sort of world because you've been cut astray but it gives you just a tiny bit of clarity and you realize the whole thing has gone quite mad and you're just not in the mood to laugh with the rest of the crowd because sometimes everything makes sense if only for a moment and that's what it means to be on the outside because fish don't think much about water and humans don't think much about air until we are far outside enough of our own filth to realize that's not how things are supposed to be.

Supposed to be is a dangerous phrase.

Eventually you have give whatever line is keeping you from completely disconnecting a firm tug and send yourself back on course to rejoin the world in all it's terrors and triumphs because space is an inhospitable place full of existential quandaries that cannot be traveled because of a lack of friction and a lack of direction because there's no real way to distinguish what is up and what is down because all you really have is yourself and the world that is tugging you along and you go in for reentry and you burn burn burn burn up as you fling yours back into the alien places that you grew up in and where you go to work and you're positive the burned mass that is your face is horrible and disfigured but no one seems to notice and that sets you on edge because how can't they see that you're not who you used to be and when they pass around the condolence card it'll be addressed to someone else that you aren't anymore but one of them will lean in and express how impressed they are that you're doing so well and they'd never be able to be as strong as you.

You know you're not strong though.

Eventually you'll get back to doing human things with your curated friends and your careful routines and you'll forget how you suffocated in space for awhile because the big awe inspiring events can only be held onto for so long before the minuscule pangs of life will take center stage and you'll go about your day in such a similar way to what you were that you'll sometimes forget that you aren't that person anymore but something will stop you and you'll remember it again as the sky burns around you and all you have left is the fall and it'll pass with a blink and bloodless lips and an awkward pause in a conversation that you'll tightly chuckle your way through because your mask slipped a little and your tormented form was exposed and you know you might have survived the landing but you still burnt up.

There's something cleansing to the act of basic maintenance that you've been meaning to do because you have no time and you'll get to it soon and the next thing you know your shoes have holes and your hair is a nest and you're so used to being a colossal mess that you don't even bat an eye when you get nervous looks from the passerby because you've gotten a little too close to the gutter even though I'm positive that was the top headline of fashion a few years ago but you take a day when you don't work and you tell your friends that you're busy and that you have things to do and you attempt to tame whatever anxiety you develop with a tiny little stool made of whatever courage you can muster and put yourself into the hands of a complete stranger who cuts things for a living and that definitely doesn't bother you at all.

No offense to wood workers.

It all turns out in a fashion not that you're feeling fashionable because the hair cutting place (the barber, the salon?) has murals of finely coifed people that have been photo-shopped into a completely different species of being but they make you feel like an alien with your split ends and sub ten dollar hair supplies and it's windy outside so the elegant presentation that you see when you're all done and you think to yourself that it isn't all that bad you might even try something new with your look is dashed by a playful wind and you remember why you do what you do to your do because time is the one thing no one has which is why you declared today a maintenance day if you'll recall but have no fear because you can still cross it off on your list of things to do between pick up milk and think about replacing your holey socks with something that won't make you cringe if you ever have to take off your shoes for whatever reason in the company of other people and just remember kids if you burn your holey socks that does not make it a holy flame so please don't try this at home.

Do not tell the firefighters I encourage burning down your house.

On your way back home you feel empowered with your wind tousled hair and a shortened list that is growing by the second but you only look at it out of the corner of your eye because today is about progress against entropy even if it wins in the end eventually so you pull up your pants and you straighten your shirt and you wish your big toe wasn't sticking out of your sock but you'll manage as you have for entirely too long and you go to collect your bread and ooo that's on sale and that's on sale and you remember reading something about supermarket psychology which sounds super villainous and now you're imagining the stock person wearing a cape because this definitely has to be a cover because how could they not know the exact aisle where your childhood lives with it's red fives and blue three dyes and you'll find it yourself when all you really wanted was to get some bread and some cold cuts.

The back of the store is an evil lair. You didn't hear that from me.

And now you're a bit more broke and hey there's a goose by the pond on the way to your place and now you have an excuse to not go outside because geese are foul and you know that was an awful joke but you had to chuckle at your own cleverness if only for a moment before you unload and unwind with your hair that is once more a nest for the birds but not the geese but hey today was productive and you've earned a little rest so kick up your feet with your holey socks and your ever growing list of things you should be doing and have yourself a five minute reward.

No geese were harmed in the scribbling of this message.

To pick up the pen tastes like lime and water with a bit of ice and an acidic tingle that doesn't exactly sit quite right but it's familiar and it clings to your throat in the same old way that it always has and always will because the muscle memory has been there for days, weeks, months, years, and so on and so forth, but it's not quite like riding a bike because there's anxiety that sticks to your teeth and makes it hard to breathe and think and panic panic panic panic but you know the rite and you know the rituals and you've got little things you do to coax yourself into the warm waters of that happy place that you really just invented to convince yourself that this isn't a stupid waste of your time but rather a treasured moment that you must defend and you must convince yourself into cherishing despite that part of you that sits on the other side of the mirror with its hands pressed against the glass that clamors and howls and demands you cease such foolishness because don't you have about a thousand other things you need to do?

Take a deep breath now. Hold it in for a second.

Down it strikes and you cast aside that fragment embedded inside of your head because fuck that voice and fuck that sound because you've gone around and around this silly sense of you must and you must and you must and your head breaks through into the ocean of things you love and the beauty in the world and it takes your breath away but it's not panic panic panic panic because this is closer to awe in the original sense when we still believed in majesty and color and the world wasn't quite so grey with its shortened views because it's just so big and we're so small and why should we not take a moment to breathe in the wonders of the world from the sound of train tracks to the smile of a performer to the curious child to the desire for celebration of an event gone well to the plume of smoke that rises from that loved one's cherried lips after a rough moment and they just need a break and you can't help but fall in love just a little more because how could anyone be so perfect as to create an electric current that runs from their heart to yours and back again in a circuit that others can see in such a way to make them jealous if only because they are alone or their beloved isn't currently present to help them shine.

Breathe in. Relax. Soak it in.

And you remember when you first realized you liked doing this when you realized the only enemy was the blank page and the infinite ways you could fill it with things on your mind or your heart or in the dark little places that make you who you are even if we all have places like that with sable black wings and looming nightmare horses that catch the light and dark just right as to stand as some titan of old when in the proper glow they'd just be the same thing you deal with every day but made unfamiliar and unusual because you're realizing for the first time that you're treading new grounds because how do you describe the tiny fractions of your world through such a clumsy set of tools with rules and guides and a thousand opinions telling you that your talent is threadbare and your prose isn't quite right and there's just no market for your opinions because someone else said it before and don't you know there haven't been any new thoughts in a thousand years but what should you care because you're still trying to find the word for the thousand subdued colors that you see from your kitchen counter as you make your coffee and perform the priestly duties of waking up the divine that resides within you because with a flick of the wrist, the tap of the finger, the snap of synapse you've just brought some half formed thing into existence and you must now give it a suitable form for it's short life before something else occupies your attention.

The buzz fades. Bask in it a moment longer.

The snarling in the back of your head on the other side of the glass does eventually catch your attention and your toast is burning oh no but you can still taste the citric finish of that curious little thought you had just a moment ago and it'll follow you through your day and you'll jot it down eventually where it's lost amidst a thousand little worlds that sit in the bottom of your pocket like a hangover that you only half remember between the sharp bites of the pressing world and the blurry recollection that builds itself into the countless associations you've made as you revel and roll in the words.