It's quiet.
Except for the bang of my neighbor's shoes as they're chucked against the ground, in a rush,
Like she hates they exist. Rattling the floors above my head.
The orange front door squeaks as unknown faces pass through with urgency, anticipating the moments to come that feel just the same as these.
This windless evening. Humid with unending chatter.
And yet so still.
The cling-clang of nearby firecrackers dance through the sky as I sink deeper into my mind.
Why is the duplicity of life both unfair and everything we need it to be, abundant and yet cursory with every ignored breath.
How does the stillness slip beneath my skin so simply, so hastily, like I could be anywhere.
Sometimes I need to be far away from anything I know to be true, just to know what is true.
Tell me, why am I accursed with such chatter, such cling-clang humming about my mind.
Honking, even.
I'm not one of those girls, those bodies, that move through time with such ease. I require muscle.
I require force, if you will, a bit of conscious. And yet I wish not, sometimes.
A bit of reason and yet none at all, if I could.
If only you knew, felt even, why I need to be atop the mountain, to feel the quiet.
To feel the wind as it breathes stillness, solitude even, through my head, far above the land of honking chatter and forced breath that seemingly no longer exists.
Beyond the life that exists in me, the escape of everything I've built, to something else I've built.
An escape, from me.
To me.
Without the quiet, nothing feels like the last.