The Jam Files #4 — Point of Peril

There’s a point of peril to arrive at. The seasons change & the body reacts. The mind races. How to explain this sense of urgency? How to tell a mass of free moving bodies that one day it’s going to hurt to do all those things? How to sate the spirit that itches to break free from the disease?

Arms of lightning creak & moan as ordinary living becomes a form of physical abuse of the body. Imagining the skin turning purple as a bruise or the plum shade before a storm at twilight in the northern skies of longing. Somebody’s fingerprints might leave messages. Half moon creases in a palm from gripping yourself so tightly. Anything for stillness.

Some things are better understood visually. If the insides became the outsides would the cysts appear extraterrestrial? Would it be hideous enough to warrant a pitied glance? Would it be a thing of nightmares? If a pinched nerve were visible would it look like a distorted piece of barbed wire? Dangerous. Threatening. No one wants to see their own deterioration. It’s bad enough just to feel it.

How to explain the feeling of bursting at the seams? How to stress the importance of a silent scream? How alarming you wish not to be. It’s always too late at night for true expression. It’s always too late to call someone. It’s always too late to find anyone else not in the throes of their own pains. It’s impossible to show how much one truly cares & wishes everyone well.

Be well. Be well. Oh well. The positive affirmations failed & this is no cause to mourn. When one doesn’t put much stock into any practice is it really a let down? Is it all practice? When’s the big show? Where’s the close-up?

One must get used to being on this outside. Different. One must get used to the ease in which everyone around you flows. How their normalcy is achieved so easily. How fleeting the bad moments are. They’re replaced by sunshine & tulips while your own poppies bloom & bleed in the heat.

A complaint is stuck in a throat & should just stay lodged there. Find comfort in the fact that you’re not adding to the world’s distress. Eat your suffering. Let it turn your stomach. Let it all out later when you are so far gone you can’t even be responsible for it.

It’s supposedly easier this way. Numb drum conundrum. The last heartbeat you have will always come as a surprise.