An Answer to Nothing

...Because we were never really here in the first place. We've been burning, trying recklessly to understand this moment. We have spent our entire lives searching for ourselves in a vast nothing. Trying to understand ourselves and what right combination of firing neurons makes us tick – what bumper sticker defines us.

...Because we have been searching for a better half, another warm body to connect to. Searching for a person we could come to comprehend. A person whose breath we could stand to share, whose name, uttered in a crowd, could make us feel whole.

...Because, at any given moment, there are an infinite amount of emotional transactions taking place. An infinite amount of people trying, precariously, to cross the ice, to build an imaginary bridge to that second half – all of it wavering on a sea of nuance, the right words at the right time and in the right place.

...Because there is a cloud of smoke escaping his lips and it is gone before I had the chance to care. I'm left to wonder what he really meant. Left to wonder if he really cared – before I evaporated, lost myself again and wandered, wringing my hands, watching the ceiling fan spin, forgotten on the wicked walls until I looked up to remember it, while trying to get a grip on the Me that was escaping.

...Because there are long, confused gaps in my consciousness, where I am trying to regain control, wondering where I lost it in the first place. Wondering how I have become me.

...Because, in reality, I am still standing on that blacktop, somewhere hundreds of miles away, years ago – watching fireworks, eating Oreos, squinting my eyes against the wind. Racing through a night that is perpetually burning for somebody somewhere – but now is my moment, borrowed, so that I may feel infinite.

...Because we have been left adrift on this burning edge, looking down into the empty ravine of our lives. Left to build what bridge across it we can muster – with silver plaques, Abercrombie, TV, and Christmas ornaments to fill the space. We have meticulously become the people that we must live inside every single day. We have used what means we can to chalk out our individuality – to leave our mark, to force the world to recognize that we were here and that meant something.