The Dentists' Office

Just imagine for a little bit. A dentist office, but don’t picture a clinic. Rather, a cozy little room with sky blue walls and purple and yellow patterned carpet. It’s quiet and warm, sunlight coming in from two spacious windows to your left.  You sit in a worn leather couch facing the front desk. Jennie is her name. She answers the incoming calls, steadily and kindly, her voice breaks up the little drum in your ear. You can’t see Jennie, but her hair peeks out from above the wall window. It’s yellow and curly and it moves left and right. She’s typing softly, clicking away with the seconds. You are reading a book about life and death. With each finished paragraph, you look out the glass door at the cars passing by down the street and the little red car that pulls up in the driveway. A lady with a green jacket and a purse slung around her shoulders step out of a parked van with her child and walk into a store front. It’s late morning and the smell of coffee draws you into the next room. You pour yourself a cup and skip the sweetener. Down the hall drifts over you the dull sound of conversations and water draining; each room, a different aura. You can’t walk down that way so you retreat back to your seat. The glass door dings with the sound of a bell hung loosely around the handle. The chorus of daily motions come flooding through the open door. A father and a son walks in, shoes shuffling across the carpet. The door shuts; the choir hushes. Your eyes follow their back to the wall window where Jennie will take care of them.

“Hello, how may I help you?” A bright smile.

“My son , Leo, has an appointment today.” A pat on the head.

Leo looks at you as you pretend to read about the dying man on the bed teaching his student. Leo smiles and waves coyly. You smile back and they take a seat. Leo’s feet dangles off the edge of the cushion chair and his boots make a squeaky sound with every kick. His father takes out his phone and becomes distracted. You stare at the page in front of you but in your corner vision, Leo steps off his chair, a sunbeam seemingly following him into the shadow of the hallway. 

i'm figuring it out. leave me alone.

People are affected by other people. But everyone says you don’t have to be. You decide whether you want to be impacted negatively or not. So if you are affected negatively, it’s easy to say you are a negative person. Judged because you have a weak inner esteem; as if they expect that anyone can just float around on a cloud unaffected, to take every offense like a Buddhist and churn it out with your inner chakra into this shining beam of positive energy. Of course, they’re two polar opposites; why not just find a balance? Well, saint, life happens to us whether we want it to or not. Why was I not born a stone in this life? I think we are a machine and sometimes we malfunction. Oil me up and give me a break while I cool down. Also I may not be built with the same abilities as you. You may have been created with an ability to filter out all that ugly smoke that clouds on a regular basis, whereas, I was built with a broken piece of wood and duct tape to hold up my enormous ego. I will not be apologetic about it. Pride or not, do not disregard me as I won’t disregard your annoyingly positive outlook on this messed up, pollution-infested, poison-soaked piece of dirt. I am working towards a more upright train of thought while you skip your way into the sunset. I’ll see you there eventually, just let me figure how to build a ladder out of this hole I was put in, too deep for you to reach into and help me up. Thank you. 

Perhaps, if this was a game of charades, we might not be so different after all. 

i had hoped in something unseen, an idea
fleeting as a single glimmer of a dead star
and, yes, i had hoped in that thing not guaranteed
never a touch nor a scent to demonstrate existence
but it is an idea
now ideas are the most curious of all the mind's tricks
able to build on itself into a mass of unfathomable heights
its mysterious depths lost even to the conjurer
an idea can manifest into that which the senses attach
waking every morning
red eyes to see it
hands shaking to behold it
legs weak to tread it
and the mind,
exhausted to conceive it
yes, an idea, the thing of all man's hopes.

and the thing of all man's despair.

i was fixated on a feeling
it was collecting in the crevices of my subconscious
eating at me like an infection
and when at once i could understand its nature
i was consumed, already, in a dream of vicious imagery
one after the other in a trance upon my cheeks
life like apparitions danced in line to the tune of violins
my throat, dry
but i sang a song to accompany
the lonely figures telling their stories
and crying out from the other side
and tore their skincloths in agony
and prayed empty promises
and chased the light
and they ate and drank their fill
until they fell
upon my feet
where my eyes had bound their bodies
and my lips trembled in mercy
have mercy
and quietly the silence gave way to a breath full of white

I am thinking one of these days I should wake up on a bright morning and drive down a road with the sunlight breaking through each branch as I pass. And I should, in my mind, not have any thoughts of regret or sadness. I will see, with clear eyes, a day which is beautiful and untainted with memories of days past drowning in remorse and anger and nervous hands clenched towards the future. I would, in that moment, be content, settled in an unceasing feeling of happiness that I have finally made it. I have finally made it.