A Monster Stuck In A Little Playpen
07/16 2021
I try to carry it up the steps without looking back, but I can't help myself. I do and it disappears, but I still try to grasp it. I stumble on my step and nearly fall helplessly all the way down, but I am caught by a sharp branch that stuck to my suit. The suit was ripped in two, but I was fine --- or as fine as I would ever be looking forward. I could descend once again to try to find her, to find that will-o-the-wisp that touches me every time in my sleep. Simply, to give myself another chance. I could get a nice new suit, I could brush my matted hair. I would get there, and knock on her door, but she would still be the same, and me too. I would climb the steps up toward the earth, and find me looking back again, again making it disappear.
I gazed out the window on my way to work, seeing the buildings whiz by to form one long blurry line. There were people in every one of those buildings, I knew that, but why was it so hard to picture it? That everyone goes through the exact same thing, only to varying degrees? Was I the monster, stuck in a little playpen? God, I hoped not. I closed my eyes and attempted to go back to the long stairway, to the moment where I made the mistake of looking back, but I was interrupted by someone playing the flute. Opening my eyes I saw a small man playing a small flute as he was dancing between his feet at the same time. He was wearing clothes that looked like they had been woven from branches, and a hat that gave the impression that he had horns, but on closer inspection was simply a regular beanie. The tune reminded me somewhat of a nightningale, like it was simply the extension of who he was, and not something that he had learned. I forgot myself and became transfixed with watching him. I was transported without realizing it to the land of the child, to the simple existence of seeing a shadow, and chasing it. There was the tune, and myself, and him of course --- but I didn't pay him any mind. Seemingly as suddenly as he had begun he stopped, bowed, and exited the train car without asking for any change. Looking around I saw that no body had really been watching him, or if they had, he hadn't had the effect as he had on me on them, seeing as they all peered down into their cell phones with a blank expression in their eyes. A kind of beauty that asks for no attention, yet requires it to be recognized as such, I realized then. If that were true, then what was I at that point and time? Simply no one, really, I might've not even existed then.