Blink

Every time I close my eyes, I fear that days will pass me by. My mind blanks out in a blink, memories hanging on the sharp strands of my hair. Who or what sits before me fades into the starless space hidden beneath my eyelids. My desire to find what once was runs deep.

However, space runs deeper.

No amount of object permanence can convince my nervousness that I am still living the moment. The signs of life have revoked its proof the moment I sink into slumber. I lay down, eyes shut, mind adrift, convincing myself I have not lost anything so quickly.

I find myself yearning to awaken with no aches or pains, yet the disappearances I’ve endured still linger in my needs.

While I believe that nothing last forever, I still believe that anything can last long enough. Presence is my personal silent reassurance that I have time to see everything unfold. I can be blissful and content with the way the wind blows against my being. How its aroma is worthy of praises and toasts. How the sounds of birds and trees dancing harmoniously is a reminder entombed in motion. How the rays of the sun conduct breathe between the walls of my skin.

However, I’m often reminded that the finish line sometimes hunts people down for sport. This is when my waking hours become an obsessive hobby, driven by the urgency to remain still against the flow of time.

How lovely it would be if time had a vacuum we could simply jump right into — a lounge that cannot age, and with it we remain eternally alive. But the world is the wildest chemical reaction we cannot completely fight against. Nature is a messiah, and we are its unknowing disciples. Who we are is tied to where we are and when those moments are.

I vehemently run away from the reality that the bloodthirsty finish line is after my head. It keeps score of my happiness in minutes, counting to zero by the millisecond. We are all targets, and no one is meant to be spared.

We are so permanent in each other, yet so temporary in the eyes of the inanimate.

I write this in my lightheadedness, hoping I never have to curse against the laws of life. These are terms and conditions accepted beyond our consciousness, for the body can often have its own sentience. What right do we have to own the very cage that contains our human experiences.

We are tied to flesh and bone, and we depend on it to work for us. In return, we work for it to simply see our days pass by in a blink.

In time, the memories we etch onto our biological slates will wither and erode like boulders in a desert.

We are no different from our fears — endlessly ending, endlessly living.