Special principle of relativity: If a system of coordinates K is chosen so that, in relation to it, physical laws hold good in their simplest form, the same laws hold good in relation to any other system of coordinates K’ moving in uniform translation relatively to K. — Albert Einstein: The Foundation of the General Theory of Relativity, Part A, §1
Suspended in time we stand still on a relative moving plane with little regard for rule. In the blank spaces of what hasn’t been said, we each silently regard the potential for the stuff legends are made of.
Two-dimensional reality runs parallel to virtual flesh and blood. We’re composed of blinking synapses that fire on small, colorful cupcakes and the idea of (someday) playing chess in the park.
Oh, the games we play.
Your opportune moves have small meaning on which to be assigned.
I’m a dreamer trapped in fighter’s form, shaped by invisible steel filled on the inside with melting glitter and gumdrops.
Somehow the game intensified along the way, making me feel lost. In our alternate reality the tricks and motives became unclear. Did the broken rules betray us?
Talking about the future is one of our favorite things to do. You calm me down when I’m terribly impatient.
I tended to a victory garden of idealism yet never asked for complacency. Should I? It’s more fruitful back where we began. I see the blurry line that defines what is good, great and passable. This reveals the truth to be neither distant nor close.
I continue to fidget. Tossing and turning, we turn tables by being quiet in day while wildly alive at night. Heavy, occasionally burdensome dreams arrive on a diamond chariot of latency during restless nights of wonder.
You whisper to me in my semi-conscious state and I understand what you’re saying from afar. A clear receiver laced with naked emotion, I steadily regard your meaning and am soothed by the vowels.
The furling sea of sheets between us hold haphazard limbs that stir a case for quiet. We seek sure and steady slumber to guide us through the night. In our post-modern yin and yang, you exhibit the decent characteristics of someone I know I’ll never be.
I keep making excuses to everyone for my estrangement. The real reasons of which are either too complicated to define or too easy to answer (I like to delay answering this). I knew all along why I went away, and if I force myself to look backwards I can see the work I’ve done. Since then, new rules have been written — I should know because I’ve been writing them myself. They’ve been tucked safely away in a cupboard alongside a large jar of salt grains from the sea.
The meaningful moments have brought us to this place. They weren’t checked off a list or announced from above. They quietly built something that mattered – mostly in winter, often in harvest.
These moments now feel disarranged like the many odd layers of clothing protecting me from what may come in rest.
The dark became light, then the light became gray.
For a moment, my eyelids flutter shut.
A discreet, powerful undertow powers cyclical waves that drive shiny sediment to shore.
I jog past, gaping at the dead sea lion frozen in time with his mouth hanging wide open like an oddly-placed Damien Hirst. It mocks me and the cataclysm of why I’m running (I’ll tell this story another time. While oddly romantic, it’s a good one).
I hope I’m not a shiny thing.
It never rains here except that one morning. The drops were heavy and deep, clouds nettled and sagging as they dripped upon us. The rain purified us all and gave face to where we needed to go on the inside.
Since then, I’ve taken to sleeping in stages. I read magazines and lay in bed listening to my heart race, living in a dream world of things easier to (mostly) imagine. Reality becomes inconsequential to the powers that be. I rise and make coffee, enjoying my time before it turns to white sand shifting through a cracked hourglass in 45 minute increments at a time.
Someday, I hope the elements of what we’ve desired singularly and together appear in some form. I hope they validate my unconventional expectations about who we are and what we’re doing here.
Until then I dream, while clutching in my fist a small bit of salt.