Single Take

This body of mine... I've only seen this thing through a glass dimly. Or on a screen, two-dimensionally. I've never, nor will I ever, have experienced it live, unfiltered, unpixelated, unprocessed.

You have, though. Sometimes you smile because you know I'm inside. I like that. Sometimes you don't. I understand that.

When you don't, is it because you can read as I do? Are you fluent in the language of surgical steel and yellow-ridged craniums? Can you make out the dichotomous standstill? Do they betray my secret struggle? They must.

Alright, then. I'll admit it. I don't know if I'm ready to put away childish things just yet. At times I come close, but stop short, asking, "Will I miss them when I only see them in pictures?"

Can you discern by these fingernails that I'm a worrier, like my mother? These nails have never seen what lies atop the fabled hill. They're confined to their little window, quarantined and allowed no further.

This mock-stubble, can you see it? (Step closer.) The clutter of my mind makes it hard to see the to-do list hanging on the back wall. Two or three weeks ago now I wrote "buy new razors" on that list.

I suppose you see right through these crooked spectacles, too? Okay, yes, like I said, I have a hard time keeping up with the detailed demands of daily life, so if I can pick them up, put the lens back in, bend the frame back into submission, then I can go another day yet without dooming them to the list. Task averted.

See how my left wrist doesn't tell me the time anymore? It just let's me go on and on until I happen by a clock and hear it say that I've lost the luxury of a leisurely pace. I can hear it now.

An abrupt end... unintentional, but fitting I suppose.