eight blurry eyes
I don’t ever worry that I’m overworking myself. For one reason or another I’m never doing quite enough; and I tire, greatly, of this feeling. Even now with the most hope I’ve had in a long time, I carry the premeditated feeling of just having failed everyone I know for the umpteenth time. It isn’t normal and I can’t stop it. I don’t know the future and that’s where the feeling is born, is bred, feeds.
These eight eyes scan around and around through the fog, listening for the shoes to hit the cracked concrete. There’s no one out there. There’s hardly anyone in here. I cannot make something from nothing, and there has never been anything even before me. Worse is to know there are those in worse situations with no support or resources… Thus my father’s voice will chime in and call me ungrateful, unintelligent for my confusion but never offering real advice into my shallow well that begs for change.
Perhaps he only did so because he was my god; and not a kind one. One that despised everything but himself, but his way, and his most loyal apostles. He taught me of a kinder god, inside of myself, and for the first time I pulled the curtain back on my demiurge. Now he waits always for my reply, begging to feed from my light. I am a kind god but I do not eat cruelty or stagnation. I always wonder, as he watered the tree we sat beneath with his own regret, that if then he could even think of an example of his own tyranny. We two were both younger then. I hear my palms testify: they want control too.
• • •
Perhaps part of the issue is that I can never wager how much work I’m doing by how exhausted I feel. Even the smallest things cast me back into my mind, the only place I know where to reach for help. Sometimes we all stare at each other with these terribly sorry looks on our faces — like I’ve crawled before them as something regrettable, but unchanging. My face is often sorry for even showing. There is nothing to defend from here; and they are listless.
There’s no reason to be me.
I hope to be able to support myself soon. I don’t think I’ve done that. I don’t really need to do that — and I love the security of having people to support me — but the feelings of uselessness permeate all of us. Even I was made to do something. Jia will clean and soothe, Date will be steadfast and supportive, Adora will steady the heart, and Idia will make home of the hovel within it. I don’t know what I do yet, though some years it’s been. Laugh more, and often, and loudly? It’s all I have outside of these moments cascading through my fingers like sand.
I will take care of you if you take care of affairs, is what Jia tells me. More dishes, more showers, a consistent routine. Housekeeping is complimentary (and I fear that I might be his first hindrance). It’s been helping. I haven’t totally let Idia drive me into the ground either (and I fear he tends to get out of hand in his own way). Date has been quieter than ever these past few months but when I can find something that piques him I indulge it (and I fear that Family Guy is actually funny). Adora and I read together and talk often. I like that she speaks out to me, makes me laugh a lot.
I have them, even when we change.
We all await the painless change of season. The world is quieting.