Hermetically Sealed

The cursor blinks when you aren’t propelling it. Boop. Boop. Boop.

It is one line, not half an inch high and sometimes the words come before it can start it’s methodical “boop-boop-booping”. Sometimes not. Boop.

Boop. Boop.

I wanted to be a brilliant writer. Instead, I am a boop-chaser. Today. Maybe again tomorrow. I tilt my head to the side and wonder almost out loud if the booping is getting faster or if my words are just coming slower. QUICK! THINK OF SOMETHING! It boops!

Is it worse to make words that are empty or to sit in a cubicle at work, trying to chase the booper, slowy being driven mad with the incessant. nonstop. boop. boop. booping.

Boop.

If I blink in time with it, the drone of monotony disappears for a split second. If I look down at the keyboard and memorize the lines of letters, the “booping” sound in my head is replaced by t-y-u-i-o-p and d-f-g-h-j-k. But only for a minute.

It still boops. Each boop, a grain of sand in the hourglass that silently ticks away the granules of writing greatness that I am supposed to house. Or perhaps a giant skeleton, dead and hanging, dripping the last remnants of lifeblood down to the floor. Boop. Boop. Boop.

When I look to the puddle, there are no words in the inky blackness. Only my reflection.

40 hours a week, it works
56 hours a week, it sleeps
7 hours a week, it eats
Sometimes it is in traffic
Sometimes in line,
sometimes in the tub.

It processes food and feelings,
it breaths and shits,
it tries desperately to connect
across the lanes,
through the windows,
on paper,
on the screen.

It grays and wrinkles,
the mind and heart wilt,
ultimately, it is alone,
in the beginning
and in the end.

It goes out the way it comes in,
crying and scared,
or shaking and angry,
either way, it goes out
and it is not a magic birthday candle:
it does not re-light.

At some point,
it goes in the ground,
in the sea,
up in the air as ash,
It becomes memory,
or maybe it is just gone.

There are no applause,
no red velvet curtains to close.
The theatre of life empty.
No period.
No darkness.
No light.
And in an instant,
we are gone,
and the line moves up to fill the gap,
an endless droning,
an emotionless march,
lemmings jumping,
one by one,
into the big nothing.

aw 01/20/2010