For one moment, one precious, fleeting moment, the wind blows through my hair and I feel pure again, alive and whole and warm inside. I never knew that purity could come as a result of, or perhaps in the form of, great release and realization. The air is all around me, between my fingers and in my hair, oxygen streaming deep into my lungs and then leaving my lips in an entirely different form, amazingly transformed within me, into something no longer useful, no longer needed or wanted. And there it is - everything only takes a second, life and death in a mere breath of air, exhaling disappointment.

I�m never really pure though, not even at my purest, not fora moment. I shrug off sunlight and it falls down my skin, bright tiny shards gliding quickly into the hard cement sidewalk, victim of my fallout. I feel like, probably am, a torn out and glued together tabula rasa, no longer blank like at first because, of course, beauty fades subjectively, people change, time never stops and the world is constantly moving, a-moving, or something along those lines.

And when the light shines on my eyes, I�ll blink it away. Because that�s what I do. I keep going because unlike other people, I�ve never seen any other options - or maybe just none that I took seriously. And in some unspecified way, I�ve managed to make that a basis for some warped sense of pride. I hold my own truths and yet it seems that I can never repeat anything that I do in exactly the same way.

When I walk, my feet seem to have an axe to grind, however ridiculous that may be - although I only notice when I�m walking toward, rather than away. Away echoes with another sound because guilt is always unique, even in its thunder. The world spins on its axis and I try not to slip away, but I can�t always manage the fine art of quelling the nausea that overcomes me with each degree of movement.

They say that I�m sensitive but they really have no idea how much - or maybe, just maybe that�s merely a hope, my own wishful thinking. The burden of my temporary purity, no matter how illusory it may have been, makes my lungs heavier as I breathe in and out. For one moment, I nearly lose the battle with gravity and my heartbeats race me to the finish line, but it�s slipping too. I wonder briefly what it�s like to fall off the earth but I shake my head and keep walking, knowing but not quite accepting, that falling, and certainly falling off the earth, is not a lesson I�ll ever learn. It�s just not what I do.

<< & >>