We, You, & I

“How do you feel?” is the most important question we can ask ourselves right now, but only if we really slow down to answer it, but focus is not something a lot of us have in abundance these days. The urge to shut down and not think is strong, way stronger than it should be. Social media, tech, failed governance, fucking genocide as nightly fare, even the fact that we want to help somebody—anybody, everybody, so many people are in need…and so are we—those urges are cranking steroids into our defense mechanisms to just not. It’s killing our ability to enjoy things but feeding unending content to fill holes. It’s tangled music into Gordian knots of noise as sonically interesting as the ticks of drops of water on the forehead every second of every hour. There’s this incessant scream we hear no matter where we are, no matter what we’re doing, and we’re aware it’s us, we’re aware it’s our family, we’re aware it’s a neighbor. It’s an entire country. It’s the whole world. And here we are. we don’t know what to feel. All we know is we’re in the macerator and we feel bites. Carnivore bites. Herbivore crunches. We’re gummed by the toothless, we’re swallowed by the rich.

How do you feel? Who the hell are you when you’re told—some told in no uncertain terms—that you do not exist, not any private, inviolable you that can’t be bought, tracked, sold, traded, stolen, faked, coerced, lied to, lied about, suddenly face updated terms, or attempt to entertain notions of privacy. You’re parsed data, useful for being primarily an advertisement for yourself. An advertisement to attract other advertisements, not people but the literal type. How do you feel being a commodity the instant following your morning piss?

You don’t like it. And it’s OK to say that. It’s OK to call rot what it is. Fuck the rebranding. It’s rot, not advancement; rot, not some new inevitability; rot, not convenience. A constant howl is a soul in decay. Anybody knows that. You, dear bright loving soul, are not here as compost.

Feelings? We’re tired. So very tired. Always tired. No matter what crosses our eyes, we feel there’s nothing really there to see. We smell a rose, our brain processes it as a perfume commercial. The sex we have, the food we eat, all serve one overriding sense: dread. The sense of something waiting just out of view to take everything.

Me, I hug family and friends. I read books. I go to the movies now and again to sit through insurance commercials, fast food commercials, prescription ads, and the odd coming attraction or two, then a film I’ve forgotten about the instant my popcorn container hits the trash can.

Then the trip home from job, party, bicycling, department store shopping, life living, and there’s a moment, sometimes fleet, sometimes rooting, where a scream escaping us wouldn’t be an unusual thing, unwarranted.

I figure that’s safe to assume.

The question is, do we scream? Do you want to? Out of all the reasons we possibly could, how close do we feel that could becomes should?

Who you with? Where you at? How do you feel? Can they help? Do you lift them? Are they light in your arms and you never plan to let them go? When they lay your head on their shoulder, do you hear music inside them because they’re angels too busy to bother with wings? How do you feel knowing someone loves you? Are you resolved to being respected and admired? Hell, even trusted. No, especially trusted. How do you feel knowing someone/something/someangel trusts you to hold them firm despite the billion grabbing hands of the world? Are you out of breath? Take one.

Take two. Take as many as the body needs. I guarantee if you think about how you feel you will know more than you think you know about who you really are, who you’re with, and any direction you want to go in. Take a few more breaths. Stop listening to me. Hear your heartbeat.

You will know. Part of you already does. There’s always that part of us that wants to witness us feeling good. And it’s not that it refuses to leave. It just can’t.

Not on its own.