My Background is Supreme

Badness after badness piles up like sand in an hourglass. Alone insignificant, each grain added together marks the weight I do not want to bear. Flowing through time these grains are the changes that hurt and the signs of progress. Each grain has a story, and it would tell you if you asked. Each story is boring, mundane, but each grain added together builds a castle of feelings I don't understand.

They tell me my body is healing. They say it is better than slow suicide. Audre Lorde says we should not live fearing death. To avoid suicide is to avoid life. Philosophy or rationalization? What's the difference? Live to fight, and fight to live. Don't be a lover, be a fighter. I wish I was a fighter. I wish I was a lover. I wish I was fought. I wish I was loved. The Wild Things live in the dark parts of us. Maurice Sendak promises they are kind if we conquer them. I want to find out, but I want it to be easy.

Each grain reminds me of my loves, my hates and my lives. Sliding sand is a high-speed slideshow of memories that hurt too much to examine closely. Thankfully I watch the sand slide, one new wave covering the old. The cycle is self perpetuating. The sands of happiness are buried by the sands of loneliness. Digging through the pile, the old sand is tarnished by the fresh layer. I dig as deep as I can and all of it tells me why it hurts, and why it should hurt. I know at the core though is the magma that warms our planet and arranges our mountains. So I dig through the hurt and I dig to find the magma that warms and burns.

The sand grows faster than I can dig. This hour glass measures eternity. You don't need to flip it over.

Grain by grain my body and mind grows. Stronger? Weaker? Stabler? Shakier? The sand tells my story, grain by grain. They tell me my body is healing. Maybe I would agree if I could step back from each falling grain and see the hourglass.