The String that Holds the Sun

I can’t stop losing the warmth in my fingers. One moment warm, secure, fine. Then the next they feel like ice. As if my heart at some grand emotional cue has decided beating is too great a stress, and certain extremities are somehow less worthy of blood. At a time like this the only solution is to write. The friction between my fingers and the keys feels good somehow. Helps me think straight.

I don’t think I really see the sky any more. Not really. I look up and see a gorgeously painted backdrop, nothing endless, nothing mysterious. I see the sun and my only thought is to question what string holds it so firmly in place. The world is a place of half-built storefronts built by techies. There is no reality, only deception, only that which men should convince us to be real. Solid ground is merely an illusion, if I choose to stand even for a second it will collapse beneath the weight of ambition casting me to the ground. And the world looks. And the world laughs in my ear. The poor tramp who thought he had the strength to stand.

So we sit still. Alone in the darkness, transfixed by shadows, denying the light. Chains that trap us, stop us from finding truth, finding deception in everything. We search for the seam. We are so much more comfortable prying apart the cracks and seeing the broken and unstable. Survival is a scary image. A hand breaks forth from heaven and offers salvation, but we can’t take it. Can’t wrap my hands around it. We can’t trust it. Can’t risk the hope.

We fell to the ground a long time ago. To stand up threatens gravity. Intimidates it. Teases it. Tempts it to strike back. To slam us back to the ground where we came from. Destroy us all over again, breaking us, cutting us apart. How do we trust the strength that overtakes us? How do we trust our own legs, our minds our hearts, to all act in concert with one another? How do we trust ourselves with such a great responsibility? The responsibility to truly live, to feel warmth fill our lungs, to make our every childish idea a reality. They’re too big to fail. Can we someday resort to socialized dreams, a world where men in suits take over achieving our wandering passions? Absorbing our unwarranted pain. Equal suffering. Equal pain. Equal joy and anticipation. Perhaps then when all control is lost we can lose the taste of granite in our mouths, let the scars fade and finally find acceptance in broken cries and whimpering voices.

Fear wraps us. Envelopes us. Chokes out the temptation of sunlight. Convinces us that if we’re going to be made hopeless it will be of our own doing. Tells us to prefer a defeat of our own design. Perhaps jumping out of the plane will save some broken bones. Better than feeling the sting of crashing down while we’re in the cockpit. Now we take great care to create the illusion of choice. Choose only to live life in the passive tense. For now we gently drift to sleep. To dream of distant shores within our reach if we’d only take a step off the boat.
The fear of what we don’t understand. The fear of being powerful. We don’t fear being conquered, we fear being the conqueror, we fear being powerful. We fear the earthquakes we create every time we take a step. We fear the fusion and fission found in the beating of our heart. As Nelson Mandela never said “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.”

With one smile we can turn this blue sky red; turn the hopeless into lovers and dreamers.

With one thought we can turn tyrants into beggars, rewrite the world with justice and peace.

If we can walk just a few feet we can circumscribe the world painting it with every shade of love and kindness.

Right now could be planet Earth’s turning point if we let it. If we stop numbing down our power, numbing the pain of seeing with clear eyes. Forget the adolescent delirium of alcohol and vicodin and remember who we really are.
We have this fear of corniness. Fear that if we ever aim for being really truly good the world will take us for naïve and stupid. We style ourselves to make sure we stay deeply trapped in our own personal faults. Unable to save ourselves from the shelter of style we’ve fashioned ourselves. Make the journey from anti-hero to hero. See a mountain in every valley. Let light fill every darkness of our lives.

When can we remember how it feels to follow our ambition’s every whim? To fight, and truly bleed. There’s no safety in this gentle landing we give ourselves, but still, we lie here, immobile. Unfeeling. Cold. We could shake the world, but instead we choose to drown in a puddle. Too tired. Too scared. As if our neck cannot crane far enough to escape the water.

Lift your head.

Breathe.