There is no purchase,
nothing to grasp,
no grip left to slip,
no fingernails left to hang on by,
for they are broken,
bleeding,
shattered
and I am falling…
…I wake to a room
bathed in soft white light
and my wife beside me.
Thoughts swim just below the surface
like playful dolphins,
teasing me to return to slumber,
but there is a droning, noisome beast at my bedside.
One that rakes it’s nails across a chalkboard in my head.
One filled with today’s duties and responsibilities
and expectations
and demands
and wishful thinking;
a Christmas list of ways that I will fall short and disappoint,
but I still stumble off, naked
to the shower.
In the glass cubicle,
barely smaller than the box I will spend my day in
and slightly bigger that the one I will eventually spend eternity in;
warm water and soap and scrubbing off the barnacles of yesterday
restore some of my countenance to that of a man
and when clean
the water goes on COLD for 30 seconds.
AHHH!
The mind screams and my body stiffens under the ice knives
that mercifully end and now I am fully awake.
The first of the day’s discomforts comes by my own hand,
then shave and dress and coffee and oatmeal;
the morning’s meat has long been given up
in favour of “Healthy Choices”.
Lunch today and most days,
will be a salad,
because I have decided that the only advantages
that I will have in this world
are the ones that I give myself.
I have not known the blessings of rich parents
or superior genetics;
so my path is forged only by my own desire
and my own hard work.
Prepared for another day,
I mentally put on the armour
and gird my body and soul
with the weapons of my people.
I am set to win,
God willing.
I pat the dog’s head
and kiss my sleeping wife good-bye,
then I am gone
to win.
To conquer.
To do something more than just exist.
A regular guy,
an regular life,
an infinite potential.
HG – 2016
