Yearn
Every now and then, this mysterious feeling creeps into my head. Well, maybe it creeps, or maybe it’s always there. Either way, it appears seemingly at random, and only for a moment. Like a prisoner caught mid-escape by a stray spotlight, it surfaces, blinks its eyes, and then retreats back to the shadows. So if this feeling a criminal, let these words be a sketch of the suspect, so that I may learn why and when I locked this face away.
First, it approaches like memory, with a fade-in, dust drifting silently in front of some glowing window, in a bedroom I don’t believe I have been in. Through the window I can see a tree, the breeze shaking its leaves in front of the sun, sending shadows dancing across my view. It seems that I’m basking in this light, lying down on the hard floor to let the outside meet my gaze. Everything is golden and sweet, and the air is antique and it hangs like honeysuckle. Again, I have never been in this room except in these moments, yet I feel someone there on the floor next to me, someone I have impossible love for, but as soon as I realize this, the room is gone. It spins and smokes away, leaving fragments of some beautiful world in its wake.
If I don’t think and don’t move and hold my breath until my chest is full, I can witness these pieces dancing downward, tiny bronze flakes floating right behind my eyes, just out of true sight. Before long though it becomes impossible not to examine, or focus. So when I inevitably target one specific speck, I can experience it only for a moment, before it melts in my fleshy grip.
Some seem to be images from my past, typical thoughts of beautiful things, things I could never think of otherwise because the nostalgia hurts me so. The others are someone else’s faded life, polaroids from another shoebox. There’s an old New York apartment, and a big old fashioned wedding. There’s a church pew, and a Christmas tree, and other stories of childhood beliefs. These images are otherwise indiscernible from one another; this life that isn’t mine almost could be. All that’s left between these very tangible and mismatched scraps are ideas and concepts, emotions and sentiments, much more wisp like than pictures and they behave so. There is no identifying or capturing, they are separate from me, and they are just passing through.
These impossible clouds of indistinguishable whatevers only add to the confusion of the actual physical sensation of this. It is distinct in its location, right at the very back of my mind, and its arrival is always followed by an all-over unsettling, similar to deja-vu. It has a real world color, gold, and it is warm and radiates, its heat dying somewhere near the front of my skull. It lasts for as long as I’ll allow, so far no longer than ten seconds, as it brings such discomfort. Occasionally I can mangle it into an actual concept: the need to create, the need for love, or the much more concerning desire for adventure. However, more often than not, this growth just sits, and takes me over. It is a hunger but for no bread I know. It is an infant crying for no apparent reason, other than it is a baby, and it is new, and it is scared, and every single thing it is experiencing hurts in some way or another. I think the true casualty in all of this though, would be to stop seeking the feed.
