“Are you well?” he says.
“Yes”, I reply.
But nothing could be further from the truth.
“Are you well?” he says.
“Yes”, I reply.
But nothing could be further from the truth.
A moth flits from the open window and lands on my knee. It tickles. Does he know how short his life will be or wonder where he is going? What the meaning of his existence is? No. He just ‘moths’. Action born of instinct. To do. Not to think.
How quickly I could end him.
I don’t, and he moths away. Fluttering his little brown wings without a care in the world.
Meanwhile I am left sitting looking at him. Trying to work out if it is possible to just ‘human’ and what just humaning is.
Is there a way to be which just embraces every moment as it comes, moves from moment to moment in blissful ignorance?
The moth comes back wondering if my bare leg is something interesting.
Then flits away again.
I sit and read for a little. Wondering if this is what humaning is. At least in part. Sharing experiences. Whether messages and conversations are like the moths as they dance around a candle. Or am I the candle? Burning slowly. Not wanting to burn too fast, too bright, lest I run out of fuel, waiting for someone to come along and snuff me out.
That lingering smoke smell the afterthought of my existence. The reminder of my light and presence. Reminder of the light that was.
The moth flies out of the window.
I hope it finds another moth. It may not be the most beautiful, elegant or intelligent of creatures but it is, just like me. Doing what it does.
Trying.
Sometimes finding what it is looking for, even when it isn’t looking for it.
_______
I wrote this some time ago when thinking and writing a little more than I have been of late as a message to somone I hold very dear to me, someone I always will hold dear to me, always.
It strikes me that what I said then applies so appropriately to how I am and what is, that it should be something I am more open about. To be, to Moth, to Human; these are things which should come naturally yet we constantly fight against them.
I hope that for at least a moment every day, with or without anyone or anything else in my life, I might be able to find the ability to just BE.
I blow a kiss.
Carried on the wind
You may never feel
It grace your cheek
Or warm your lips,
Touch your soul
In dark so bleak:
It will always be,
Floating on the breeze
An eternal offering.
If ever you
Should choose to feel
It will be.
I try to wake up early
(But I keep on hitting snooze)
Theres nothin’ wrong with me they say
Its just my heart thats bruised.
So I’ll sink a little deeper
In these post traumatic blues,
As summer leaves start crisping,
Taking on their autumn hues.
There’s nothin’ wrong with missing,
I just wish it wasn’t true,
Each day I check the internet
For some old scrap of news.
I know we all have choices
But it’s never me you choose,
Its always been another guy
Who acts like you’re a noose.
Friends say find another lover
But its never any use
Maybe I should take note
And just cut you fucking loose,
But every time I try to break
My soul returns to you.
I wish I could just understand:
Why’d leave your tartan shoes?
On lofty peaks horizons wide,
Challenges in silence sound
Looming thoughts through mists of time
Memorial leviathans stand round.
Thick fog envelopes thought and sight
Above the water still below,
In seeking stumble feared of plight
A weary chest heaves crumbling soul.
The journey ends yet now I’m shown,
All ways obscured in coming storm,
Where feet should find a path to home,
The compass spins, not polar drawn.
Unwilling thus to let it end
I step on, forward, then again.