a creature of the earth, but a spirit of space

being bedridden with food poisoning for the last week and a half has been a lesson in reminding myself what truly matters. When I first had the panic of the initial decline in my health I believed I might actually die, I felt like my body was healthy but being attacked from within. I had a long think about how a healthy person can suddenly die due to only a few bodily processes glitching up. I thought about who would come to my funeral or crawl out of the woodwork claiming to be my best pal after I was gone. I pictured what might happen to my body or where I might go from here. I felt my soul force leaking from my body and truly believed at one time I might not ever be normal again. I became apathetic to everything, social media in particular suddenly had no gleam, glow or point. While people posted selfies or wrote about what they were doing I couldn’t bring myself to care because I felt just that terrible. It was as tho the earth had only turned dark and hollow. Like there wasn’t much to miss or that my part in it didn’t seem to effect much. Every little action took so much energy that it felt pointless. I found myself using sleep as an escape from just how pitiful and panicked I had become. My birthday had just passed and I felt the cloak of another year seem to weigh me down into the soft soil of my grave. I wondered what it was that made me all those times before create, feel pleasure or simply perform some menial task. Without my body to get me there I was simply stuck on the rollercoaster of my mind. For days I rode like a silent passenger round and round considering all the horrors and worries up close and personal. Admiring all those shadows and thinking fondly of all those things I would miss. I would miss the feeling of the sun on my skin, the smell of dirt in the summer, a hug after a long time of separateness, my lovers hand on my cheek, a ripe fresh peach, soaking in a warm bath, the deep belly laugh of someone I love, the soft brush of a cat tail on my legs, the way the grass dances in the breeze. All these things seemed a distant dream to me now, some kind of other planet from my current state of existence. Things so silly and simple that they hardly seem worth the trouble. In that darkness I found myself again, a part of me living in there forgotten and alone. A splinter trapped in that heavy world where all that was important no longer held any weight. She joined me on the rollercoaster and as we passed by the usual crowds of specters of death and feelings of worthlessness, the tunnel seemed to brighten, my body felt less foreign. Once the rollercoaster finally came to a stop I was alone again. Somewhere along the ride we had melded back into one. I felt as though I had lived life times in split seconds, as if I was asleep to what was true. And in that truth I began to see my reflection and that to live well means to meet that darkness and walk hand in hand towards a fate unknown to you. To look deep into the eyes of death and still find purpose to live for. The point of living is loving. And to live any longer without recognition of that simple truth was only a masquerade of life. I plan to live and love until my hearts all spent to ashes. Each day that passes I feel my strength return little by little, I feel my body filling back up with life force and with new ideas and hopes. It feels as tho a thousand years have passed and I have been viewing it from a great distance, like I am a rock or tree watching from a place of witness without much say or control, at the mercy of my environment. But as I feel that numbness slipping away I find a new emotion wakes sleepily, hunger for change and growth. Determination for whatever dream I’m fostering to come to fruition. A need to step into my place in this world once and for all and stop avoiding the path that has laid itself at my feet.