I Don't Know Who I Am

[ry0un0suke]

. . .
I am pretending to write something profound so that I look busy.
Why? Because someone is looking at me on my usual perch.
Look busy, look busy.
. . .

I had a dream last night unlike the rest. I'm running from something chasing me in the sky. It's massive, roaring, flying faster than I can run, but somehow, I manage to evade it every time. Before it swooped and swallowed me whole, I took refuge underneath a big tree, or under an umbrella on a cart, or inside a small building. The people looked at me shocked, how come that thing is chasing you? They ask. Every time I had no answer. When the coast was clear, I left and tried to go about my day. What if it gave chase again? What if I am not too quick to hide? Those are dreams I dislike the most.

  
I hate being chased.

---

A party is being thrown soon in celebration of my life.
The girls put together a party, for some reason.
I don't think anyone will come. I should have never said anything.

 . . .

How do you make peace with burying your son? He has not a soldier, but I will have to bury him. For his entire life, he has been sweet and kind. I held him, watched him walk, watched him grow and now he curls, bit by bit. He looks at me, in awe and sorrow, remarking how much younger I look by the day. I am his mother. It haunts me, that day where he struggles to walk, where he will confine himself to a bed, where I take care of him all over again. That day is not soon, but it feels so soon when years blur and time slips and slips but lengthens at the same time. I will turn around one day, to his bedridden state. I will turn around one day, to his grave. How do I make peace with the mortality of my eldest son?

. . .

[ry0un0suke]

. . .

[ry0un0suke]

. . .

They hadn't written since autumn. They can't write or find verse in their soul. They can't, they haven't. Nothing responds to them. Why? Why! They almost died and it killed their will to write. A new decade, the 60th one of this century. When was their birthday?
. . .

Something tells me I am cursed. I have finally woven a dream no one will dream and I sit, wondering why I reached to begin with. Nestled in my hands, tailored and flawed, ready to experience and it was not enough. I have stopped the chase and turn around to see no beast hungry for all I am I- am cursed to run forever away from phantom claws and teeth that would tear into all I am I-- nearly died. I nearly died and when I run, or when I hide, or when I seek to be looked at I cannot find anything, that feels the depths of weakness so profound in me. As if I speak in silenced voice, yelling until my throat bleeds unheard pleas for eyes that do not look, ears that do not listen, hands that do not touch, I-- am cursed. In knowing this curse, I try futile as if ushered into insanity's winding, bottomless pit, falling freeform with my eyes glued to a waning, furthering light. If I write, nothing will happen. If I press in that seal, nothing will happen why-- does this continue happening?
 

---

Once the head rolled at a crescendo note at string's pull. Plap, plap, rolling out crimson tendrils onto the carpet. Not even a pin dropped. Eyes from across the decorated hall stared center at the once beautifully garbed royal beside father and son without that head that presented most of that beauty. Are they still? Lent on its side, hair scattered and lathered in their own blood, still warm, a stunned pleased expression, one tickled by the festivities at hand. So many people rallied in their celebration from allies to strangers and all stared at the headless heir, and cheered. 
 
Finally.
Finally.
 
Someone did it. Finally, no more must we tolerate their awful mood. Finally, no more must we listen to their baseless woes. Finally, no more must we put up with their wavering mood. Finally, no more must we hear their boring rambles. Finally, no more must we pretend their ideas are good. Finally, no more must we mask our disgust for all they are. Finally, in resounding cheer the entire room of guests in attendance for their celebration clapped, roaring for an encore if possible... so the head sprouted once more, delicate, sharp features in the midst of a smile, or statement, remarking the fun they are having or hopes for the guests.
 
The blade meets flesh, cracking beneath the surface through muscle and finding strength to severe supporting spinal bones before cleaving through the other side. Their head flies. Plap, plap, spraying crimson in its wake, bathing father and son nearby and those beyond the hedges in the crowd. Again, the head rolls and without a missed beat, the crowd cheers, wanting for an encounter. Eternally, it plays out, relived horrors of celebrated death during celebrated one-hundred years of life.

---

I want to put you in a cage so you never leave.