There’s just something about August I suppose. The desperation, the fervent quest, the stubborn refusal to turn back. How close to the edge can we get this time?
My days are a whirl of eigenvalues and floquet multipliers, abstractions analogized into stories concrete enough to conceptualize. Diagrams of causality, networks tracing the connections between disparate parts. Soon the mathematics looks less scientific and more arcane, I’m barely conscious with my face in pillow but I remember when I wake up the dialogue was still running, the answer’s there, just a little deeper.
And my nights are tarot cards, meditative poses improvised in a bath tub, candle flames reflected on the surface of the water, twisted into the impression of a face with a small frown, a look of concern.
Eventually there’s headaches and stiffness, because for all the questions I try to answer, I know. I know I’m running, and the ones I’m not ready to face are waiting.
Worse, still - the answers. The choices, the decision between two halves of your heart, when you know the only way to remain some semblance of whole is this collapsing moment of indecision.
Because I know what I want. Whether I want to or not.
I just don’t know how to survive it.
I’m in love with the romance of tragedy. And it’s twisted me into this bent and crooked thing. My hands are like claws, grasping but inflexible. I cup them to assuage my thirst, but no water pools between them.
I’m chasing wind and ghosts. Romance, love, tragedy, truth, beauty - they’re abstractions.
People aren’t abstractions. People are concrete. People live by different rules.
People are concerned with where we’re going to eat, or getting to their job on time. What time they need to get to sleep, who they need to call.
Their relationships are choices about loneliness, shelter, comfort. Animal concerns, the disappointing reality of our biological heritage.
…
I know what I want, but I’m afraid.
It’s the old story, the only drama.
I can have what’s there, but it isn’t what I want. I can want what I want, but it feels impossible, unattainable.
So here’s to choosing your own ruin, I suppose.
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