#flowofconsciousness

random writing prompt

“You think that you can evade me,”  “I am the only thing left to bring you down.” “If kings and gods have bowed down to me, what makes you think you can refuse for long?”

“You’ve conquered many, but now you face me, you last and final battle.” 

The rush and press on my head had started as a low buzz, growing stronger now. There wasn’t much I could do without bringing that buzzing on; I sat down. My limbs were heavy with the weight of my past. The achievements of my body, once a vigor pulse, now added lead to my limbs. My blood felt as though it were turning to rock. My every joint pressed as though swollen, creaking as I shifted.

“There is nothing you can do now, how does it feel to be so helpless after being once so full of life. Of vigor. You used to stand up. If you wanted change, you made it happen. The people used to look up to you as their golden idol. Their champion of action. And now look, I have brought you low.”

There were no lies here, I felt the discontent in my belly, the truth rung like an unrelenting yearning. The words brought me aches. I needed to fight back, to stand up and return fire. To take charge and break free. I was once so full of life. What happened? How did I get here?

“I will keep growing, there is nothing you can do. You will succumb, you can try and squirm and writhe but there is no escape. All have come to meet me, many who have achieved much more than you. What makes you think you could ever win. You will fail.”

I was not going to let that happen. I gave the order to stand. Limbs, respond, joints return to life. Cast away the stone, the rot, the lead and stand! With gritted teeth I stomped my feet in rebellion and shot upward. But my body did not comply. It remained, I remained. I fell to the ground. I was trapped. Trapped within my own body, my own inability to resist this great force.

Was this truly it? Was there nothing left to do but wait for the days of monotony to turn into years of the same and onward onto death? The answer was clear to me as I lay, immobile. A laugh of the deep filled my ears.

“Just a little while longer now. I am the final battle, the one and only that no one has taken down. Men of great feats, women of mighty strength, the old of much wisdom, the young with their vigor, children with their unending innocence, all have met me and crumbled. There is nothing you can do, there is no escape. I am your eternity, your ever present foe. There is no place safe from me.”

I knew it was right, I was tired, so tired. My body felt sucked to the ground. The ground was heavy and my body craved to return to that dust. I forced a swallow of air, willed my lungs to fill so I could enact one last moment of defiance. “Name...” My voice stuck in my throat, raked across the gravel of my dry mouth. “Name yourself...being.” Another laugh from everywhere, from no where, from inside my head, inside my belly.

Quindi si, sono impressionata, bravo, hai dimostrato di essere in grado di staccarti dalla gonna di mamma, e mi piace pensare che un pochino sia anche merito mio. Però, cazzo, no.

Io dovrei essere quella felice che scorrazza per il mondo.

Quindi comunque l’odio prevale.

Sometimes it’s not so easy

To look past all the hurt

And into the future where you’ve become

Brighter

Less tangled in tragedy

Less like the avaricious black hole

I knew as you

Sucking all my light like silver from a tooth

Like mercury watersheds converging on foot

To run me out of my comfort zone

Maybe you were doing me a favor

And I couldn’t see it then

Maybe you were teaching me how to know

The difference between right and wrong

Between what’s free and what’s needed

And how I might have to work a little harder

To be happy

Than I was taught

We were all taught to hold our futures like matchsticks

And strike them on a hope of having it better

Than our parents did

But they didn’t warn us about the flames growing blue

With the passing of every moment

And that our fingers would burn

If we didn’t hurry up and choose

And I know this world moves too fast

To find yourself in the roar of motion

That’s why you’ve gotta hang on

To the parts you know are there

The parts that feel real to you

Concrete and corporeal like the coldness of a headstone

Unmistakably human like the pleas of a dying man

And we’ll be there soon enough

To the cemetery gateway of whatever comes next

So while we’re here let’s be gentler

With ourselves

Let’s be kinder

To each other

Let’s never hold grudges and promise

To overlook the stupid insignificancies

Of which we are all guilty

And it’s no emergency

This loss you thought you needed

This emptiness you used

To break out your front teeth

You’re just being a descriptor

For something already described

In the bones of everyone who ever set foot here

On this thriving planet where we all fail

So miserably to come clean with ourselves

It’s no measure of bravery

Making the connection that we’re not really living

But dying with every breath we hitch

In tired lungs expanding the tree of our barrenness

Bare-boned creatures as we are

It’s just how it is

The way of things

So to speak

But I’m here to say it doesn’t have to be winter

Every time you open your door

To let in the light

It doesn’t have to be night

Every time you feel the claw marks of loneliness

Creeping up your back like cancerous invaders

You’ve gotta let the light in

Because the sky wants to talk to you

Just as much as you talk to it

On cold nights when the stars seem so far away

If you’d just listen

Instead of pouring out your endless litany

Just listen

And you’ll hear it

Just listen

And you’ll have it

That warmth in your bones

That feels so foreign?

That’s forgiveness

That’s a clean bill of health

A tumor evacuating

A brain stem regenerating from nothing left to work with

That’s forgiveness

That’s eternal

And its never gonna end

As long as you listen

Just listen