Elementary School

I’ve never felt this way before.

The sky lies to me. Blue. Gray. Empty by night. Colors come to mind again. Colors have been defining a lot for me lately. White. The clouds are truth. Yellow. The sun is truth. With their help I can see the world is still moving. I’m not stuck. The blacks and blues, they’ll come and go, despite how permanent I imagine them to be. Because the clouds will move whichever way they please. The sun will shine and shift then hide. I’ll feel the rain in Minnesota, the burn beneath my eyes in Arizona. And I’ll know things are changing. No matter how deep the blue in the sky, or how endless the black of night. We’re moving.

I have these moments I feel trapped by brilliance. Not my own. I’m not so conceded, so confidant rather, that my own brilliance has ever locked my hands within their own cuffs. I feel trapped by the brilliance that surrounds me. The passion beside me when the sun breaks, the talent lying disheveled on the floor when it’s been risen for hours. I feel sub-par. That doesn’t sound right. Though. Thinking. Maybe it’s not supposed to.

This is a confession.

I took a step in the desert. Dry, desolate and hot, each wandered gaze indistinguishable from the last. I made a moment. I said aloud exactly what’s been causing the bipolar weather patterns in my mind. In the passenger seat, protected only by a loosened seat belt and my own side view reflection, I admitted my weakness in this very venture to a person who already knew it. Who knew it and was advertently using it against me every chance he had. My confession was this: I was irreversibly out of my element.

Before I left New York, I didn’t think I needed a scene. Or wanted a scene. What I wanted was to be part of every scene. For at least a day, a month for some, a whole year for the ones I admired most. But always, no matter what the scene, I’d leave before I felt confined.

I runaway. It’s sort of my thing.

A scene so fabulous they even call themselves “the scene” surrounds me. ERS. But I’m also surrounded by love. And thus, my discomfort only comes in pieces, in moments. And in those moments I feel like I’m stranded on the side of a road, naked, with my thumb out like some traveling oaf in Nebraska - far from the van, farther from my element. Not to say that I’m searching for my element and that tour is symbolic in all those elaborate schemes of highways and dead-ends. I’m just realizing more about the concept of an element. That I don’t really have one. That I’m out of the one I wish I had. That I’m surrounded by people who are drenched in their own. Yet I love them. And believe in them.

They see my weakness. They rip it apart. But they never hold it against me. There’s always a spot on the floor of row four with my name on it and a tattoo with the weight of their eyes rolling in its ink. I’m a temp as they say, as I knew coming in and will know going out. And though the term has been used against me on the surface, they couldn’t have done a worse job of making it feel true on the inside. They’re family. And I have a soul for them.

I believe in more than one soul. That nothing has to share a place. That we have a handful of hearts. And when we say little lines about giving our whole heart, we can mean it.

I read Erica’s blog. Two blogs. One of which exemplified the soul of a kid who in every which way was in her element. And another, which showed me the soul of a lover. A lover who had at least one person they could say they loved so passionately, so platonically, they could write a novel based merely on a resting jaw-line.

It dawns on me that I have neither soul.

I wonder. I fear? If I’ll ever be able to identify my scene so naturally, or love someone so blatantly. Maybe one day. For now, I’m still young. The word young isn’t so relative when preceded by the word ‘still’ is it? I’m young. Back to relativity. And sometimes I think I think so much that I’m growing older just by thinking. Then I realize how naïve thousands of my thoughts are and I feel how young I really am. I’m learning.

For now.

I ride above four wheels, beside my six friends, letting my thoughts take a rest. Letting banter fill the air. Hoping that the gas runs out. Hoping I can feel this forever. Knowing that I can’t. Knowing at the very least, I’ll wake up with them tomorrow.

For now I have tomorrow.


Dear me,

These letters to the hypothetical are apparently expired, but you should know this: You think a lot. You define too much. You write well. You have friends. If you want it, you’ll get your element. And a life compared means shit. You’ll write this. Read it again and again. But it will take you time to actually believe it. Even longer to live it. Black and white. This is truth. Don’t runaway.

Perfect is not relative. Perfect is not ideal. Perfect is nothing and nothing is perfect. And the illusion of perfection kills.

Love,
TimmyEPIC.


Word Citations:
Blatantly (as a positive adverb) – pTerica
Oaf (as a silly word) – Stevie Cream