The Game of Life

OR: A Brief Report on Paperclips, Panic, and Human Failures

All the names I know and the scaffolds of memory fall through the floorboards.

Every day I nearly say it but the silence wins. Instead of speaking, my voice crackles into little pieces of carbon and drops into the palm of my hand.

Or maybe I coughed it up. That’s possible too.

While I build strength to say it, I get sidetracked on occasion.

I indulge in the petty.

Last ditch effort to fit in I suppose.

Be “normal” … whatever that even is.

Only that, I’m mean (not on purpose), and it doesn’t work.

What fun, I say, until I get bored, completely unaware.

Then, I’m reminded I’m an ass so I sit down.

(and loathe myself too deeply to form a verb).

Silent once again. Wiser once more.

It’s a habit, not a proclamation.

Right then, I notice some paperclips on the floor by my foot.

So small. So lunar.

When I reach for them, I misplace my hands and fall into an echo.

An echo of a moon over a train that I now sit in.

I’m on a midnight train, halfway to tomorrow.

Maybe I ought to be sleeping.

They say it helps fight wrinkles.

Somewhere a tired lung draws itself in, and leaks life slow.

Aching light passes through pores of skin and my ribs hum with something ancient.

My eyelids flutter shut over an old black and white film.

I think I might be sleeping and dreaming of all this life inside a skin I don’t quite live in. I shake my head. It’s unfortunate I think. This body. It’s been through so much.

I forgot what it is like to actually do something with it.

I have been in my head so long I think I might have morphed into a floating head.

Which sounds exhausting so instead, I embody myself.

Or is it that I hallucinate myself.

Doesn’t matter because I now have legs.

I walk to get around to explore the space.

I feel the people around me.

Their wants, their fears, their sharp edges.

Sometimes I poke at them. Shake things up.

I used to think I was helping others by doing this.

I used to think awareness was a gift to pass on.

Now I know it was never for them. It was for me.

The awareness.

My awareness is only for me. I can’t create awareness for you. So bugging a trumper is for the part of me that is small and mean. The part of me that is scared and hurt.

The part of me that is always hated on, rejected.

The part that jokes like a clown and kicks like a child.

Because I am scared.

A scared girl who doesn’t even care anymore.

Because maybe this will make me fearless, (I think).

An angel nearby reminds me, “You can’t ruffle someone’s feathers to help them see themselves. That’s not brave. It’s blinding. (you), It’s not nice and delays the process”.

“Damn it”, I pout. This place is no fun.

The angel then rests their hand on my back and grants themselves a brief hallucination of forgiveness: (Earth is hard but I assure you, this is the kinder way).

“psh. yeah right”, I mumble.

I then close my eyes and see everything.

I see an old women microwave silence for dinner. I see teenagers bite their lips til it bruises God’s name. And I see infants reach for dirty bedsheets for comfort because they don’t yet know what not to believe in yet. The moment dilates and I see myself.

I’m reminded once again I’m an asshole; and all of the politics around me turn into buzzing flies that flutter about my face, just to irritate me. I flail my arms about to rid of them. Failure, forgiveness, forgetfulness; breathlessness; the hum of maybe…

Frustration.

Fidgety, I decide to sit on my hands and close my eyes.

I whisper, I’m grateful, I’m grateful, I’m grateful—chanting to my subconscious.

I breath and stretch my thoughts into static.

I think I forgot how to live slow.

Maybe after 15 years, I forgot how to live at all.

I’m not sure, but I’m protected. Blessed, and lucky. I think?

Just then, I hear a scream from outside. I quickly stand up. I swiftly slide my socks on the wood floor—I’m practically skiing. I look out the window to the street below.

People are running.

Frantic, I grab my shoes and hurry downstairs.

I need to help!

I open the door and the whole neighborhood is screaming.

I walk to the parking lot across the street where everyone seems to be coming from.

I’m trying to find the harm. Nobody sees me.

They all run past me.

Behind the bushes edging the parking lot, I hear a grown man.

I hear a scream that is more like a holler.

Not the kind you hear in arguments or accidents—this one is ragged and full of wet-throated horror. A scream that doesn’t rise; it tears through the air.

He groans, then wails—a sound so pure in anguish and pain, it cuts through everything else. The man is being devoured by something. It isn’t human.

It isn’t an animal. I can’t see it but I feel it.

It’s a demon but not a demon. Demons are pretend. This isn’t a movie.

This is a funeral and it smells of copper; and decay.

Something metaphysical. Something tangible. Something of a shadow.

A monster.

My jaw doesn’t drop. It tightens.

It’s my heart that drops.

Because I know in that moment, there is nothing I can do to help.

So I run.

Everyone runs past me. Wind hits my face, arms shove me sideways. I nearly crash into a red car. Someone screams in my ear—maybe me. I don’t know. I can’t think.

My legs are thick with panic.

I can feel my heart knocking around on the inside of my ribs as I run. It’s begging to be let out. I wish I could fly. I finally see home. I coach myself—keep going, almost there. I run up the stoop as frantically as fingers in a crescendo and I jerk open the front door and close it with one fell swoop. That ends with a quick turn of a deadbolt.

I breathe relief.

I’m safe.

I still hear muffled screaming outside. My heart aches.

I freeze there, breathing. My hands tremble. I’m tired. I’m small.

There is no phone call to make, no weapon to find, no hero inside me to unzip.

I cannot help and I’m disappointed, in myself. My hopes are dashed.

I’m safe but I’m alone.

I’m crushed. I was never able to truly help anyone.

All I did was see myself.

And I, was beautiful—so beautiful; and ugly. I was also mean, angry—heartbroken—afraid—and I nearly dissolved once—as Orestes, I ran so far that the sun birthed me over and over and over again but not as a curse. As a prodigy. Or maybe its an apology.

Or is it prophesy.

My body understands before I do, that this is a one player game—that’s played working together. That’s the lesson. It’s almost over and most never figured it out.

And I … too late (maybe)