Dig: Oh my God, I can't believe it. This is leaving me, gasping for air, I just cannot handle what just happened.
Pip: What? Are you alright? Is everything ok?
Dig: No! It's not at all. I was going to go to this ALANON meeting, and then Myrtle canceled on me. It's horrible.
Pip: Wait, what?
D: Well, she actually canceled hours ago, which was fine.....but then decided last minute to go and I wasn't near my phone to get the message in time, and oh my God, I don't think I'm going to make it!
P: Hold up, this is over a meeting?
D: Yeah, I was looking forward to it really bad. Pip, what the hell am I going to do?
P: ....go home?
D: But, these were my plans! That is they were...and then they weren't but, if, if, if only I checked my phone sooner! I could be there, right now! I, I, I gotta call Tompkin.
P: Huh?
D: If I can get in touch with her, then we can go out later.
P: And this remedies you missing the meeting how?
D: I mean, it doesn't, but it's, you know, a backup plan.
P: For what?!
D: This time interval, it's just...vacant, I need to....fill it!
--------
D: Fuck she's busy! What do I do? That's it, I'm gonna go to the meeting!
P: It already started you fucknut!
D: Oh my God, Myrtle stopped responding to me. I, I, I think I'm gonna choke. Someone....oh, I know, I'll text Marcy.
P: Huh?
D: If I text Marcy, she'll respond.
P: And then?
D: Well, and then I'll have her response...
P: Are you meeting up with her later?
D: Oh no no, she's on a date. My guess it will be late. I just need to hear from her.
P: Wait, backup.
D: Yes?
P: Your girlfriend is on a date...with someone else...and what you're fretting over isn't her, but is because your had a communication breakdown with Myrtle?
D: .........yes.
P: Now tell me if this is incorrect. Your girlfriend is potentially fucking someone else tonight, you're sleeping alone.....and the only thing making you a headcase right now is the FUCKING ALANON MEETING?!
D: ...is that weird?
P: I am ready to walk away from you right now.
D: No no, listen, it's fiiiiiine that she's on a date, because I made a decision to not rely upon her tonight.
P: Ok, sounds healthy so far....
D: BUT, I made -plaaaans- to go to this. Get me?
P: Wait, so are you mad at Myrtle?
D: Oh goodness, no, she's a doll, and I'm so grateful she'll even come with me to these meetings.
P: Then why the God damn panic attack?
D: ....
P: Do you even fucking know?
D: Of course I do! I mean, what am I supposed to do now? There's this vacancy now, my distracting friends are checked out, my girl is occupied, and this project, this prospect is a complete fail. I know I could go next week but what do I do now Pip, what now? The moment is upon me, and I'm in subway limbo!
P: You let go.
D: I....
P: It's that hard, isn't it, for you? Marcy, Myrtle, Tompkin, inaccessible, you can't let yourself float even for just a few hours, unreined, can you?
D: It's just, my lungs, felt like they were collapsing on me.
P: They weren't.
D: And where was I to go?
P: Your apartment.
D: And what happened if I didn't get to the meeting?
P: You'd wait another week and talk to Myrtle before even that.
D: Pip, I don't think you get it...the world, it pushes so hard on me.
P: No, it doesn't. You push on yourself.
D: Then why am I almost at the brink of tears, why won't something affirm itself to me?
P: Because the universe isn't at work to reconcile your schedule conflicts, or fix when your paycheck cashes too late after rent's due, and it doesn't shield your lover's eyes from seeing others as desirable, and it doesn't make everyone you encounter see your goodwill, and it doesn't compensate for your clumsy feet. It won't pad your life, it won't swallow you into itself and cushion every harsh edge and moment. That's on you.
D: That's cold Pip.
P: It's true. And you, you made the mistake. You used to be so upset when Marcy would go on dates.
D: But I'm fine now!
P: Sure, I see it, but didn't you just find another focus to put your energy? Didn't you just grab for another support? Life isn't about hopping from one crutch to another. You're always going to slip. You're going to step on the crack eventually. People get busy, get sick, change their mind, lose interest, get stuck on the train, get pulled into meetings, re-align their desires, reach new stages of life, new echelons, shift their paradigms, keep moving, and going, and thrive doing so. Where are you in this? Still dragging in the mud? A step behind, stuck in nostalgia, hyper-reflection, choked up on dry stagnance?
D: I just have to be careful.
P: Careful over what?
D: To test to see if the universe will be more....accommodating to me.
P: Is that really how you want to be....intent to test out, try on, prod, and pry and pick at everything just to validate it's bullet proof. That it will somehow make your life more stable? The only situations worth considering are those of tested harsh steel and an atomic clock? Will you really hold everything accountable this way? Do you hold yourself in such a way?
D: Well, this isn't really about me.
P: The only thing this is about is you. Your swirling, black hole of an epicenter, drawing things in with a horrible irreconcilable gravity. A vacant non-dimensional pinprick intent to pull it all so close without daring to actually let it touch you.
D: It's in my gut, if it were to have a location.
P: You even let it draw vitality away from your head, your heart, your eyes, your health.
D: It just feels like...
P: ...what?
Like the lost childhood I can sense when I hear 'Mayonaise" by the Pumpkins, and all I can do to re-capture it is if I can just play this song one more time, just hold on a moment longer, kiss your cheek for a final time, I swear, then again, and have you show me before you go that you'll be back despite what happens during this day apart, despite the other flesh you may know. It feels like how I just want some reassurance, all the time, that the sadness in my father's eyes isn't the inevitable crush of your life bearing down on you at long last, that all you can do is postpone; to be sure for even this sweet lunch hour that the weight of it all won't overtake for just a day more, if I can just hold on for but a moment longer before it all sweeps me away. It feels like the daunting gap my vacant chest cavity occupies between my tightened throat and spasmic intestines, threatening with its vacuous potential to collapse and consume nothing but itself.
If I can just fill it, this gap, and wrap it, and squeeze out any air before it can make any sort of demand on my gut, I'll have just another day to wake to. Then maybe the crippling realization that it's all held in some arcane, contrived, arbitrary balance that could break at any moment can be pushed off.
It feels that your flesh could maintain my breath, keep its pace and sure movement; that this distance can fold away at the beckoning of my need, my aching need. And I can let rest my eyes, and tired lids until we must do this dance, again.
Sleep, how much I'm trying to just get to sleep. Oh, it will come again, all of it, but the sweetness of sleep.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
How, knowing so much that I do, do I end up here? The full, pulsing wonder of the world around you, begging to be touched, scratched at and witnessed. My existence bearing the demand of using my hands as is fit, inscribing my smiles and gestures upon those I love, holding with care, speaking with conviction, owning the self. But, how can we, how can I, not know the way we'll fall in this, so surely that we will fall? Inadequate to push off death, inadequate to remove the taint. How do I bear this sweet, trusted burden; how can the short, naive moments of the day ever, ever compare? Cruelty, it seems, is what robs us of the ignorance of death.
And I, playing the victim, still conjure up the otherwise subtle cruel memory of how it is to not fit. And I, playing the frantic wanderer, perpetuate my ignorance of life.
Trapped, stuck and clutching to the ever elusive sweetness of moments with another, I have forgotten the skill, the blessing, of knowing how to simply just be.
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