Cadavre Exquis

Nigh on two years, no ritual followed, but scratching the back of my head ever since, now has the itch returned and after drainage words may come.

Too many images thoughts and pondering, two many fronts, too many wounds left unattended building up. Yet time has come, like the circular feeling of existence that I experience. Life in numbers, memories in years, expectations unmet, desires unfulfilled and then realization of the broader picture. Drifting back and forth, hoping strength shall remain unwavering. Yet the warrior, the man-child, has its limits.

For a moment I thought to myself "what if all this I'm experiencing right now is but a figment of my imagination, an amazing one at that, and I'm still 19, trapped in my 19-year-old body filled with teenage angst and unfullfilable expectations". And then everything came rushing in, nearly two decades of experiences, faces, smiles, shouting, cries, and dreams of a future that never got to be. One? Hundreds upon hundreds.

If I could talk to my 19-year-old-self, would I tell him everything? Would I help him avoid the spots where I crashed, where I went wrong with me and others, would I be that kind of sci-fi douchebag that tries to change his present by changing his past? Would I deprive myself of all sorrows, and all the joy as well, in order to correct my course and get somewhere else in life? Would I tell him - me - about the fatal dates? Would I warn him in order to avoid certain acquaintances long lost in time? Would I tell him to cherish every single moment, or would I let him just go ahead and help him speed up on hi way, on his most collision course? Would I return time after just to check on him - me - so he may acknowledge the truth of my words, or would I just try to rekindle trust so he's not alone all those many days, nights and time in between?

At 19 I had still never lost anyone, at least none that I had taken for granted. I though my problems were the world's. I hoped for change, but did not rush, I but held it back, afraid it might become what I actually desired. I longed, desired, wish for change, many small one making the big one happen. But my spectator spot was well furnished, comfortable, change was but a mythical creature , something that could only happen to others who were luckier than me - or at least luckier than what I thought it meant "to be lucky" -.

Memory is an amazing thing, you see, for depending on the type of memory you train, you may get to forget useless stuff and keep those memories that keep you focused on your goals; or you may get to have the sort of memory in which you remember all details. And my, for one, has the ability to keep millions of single memories, single events, or whole sessions of images, sounds, smells, and yes, unfortunately, emotions...

At this point, you may be wondering "why so serious?" - as a well known Joker once said -. Quarantine.

"So, yeah, dude, you're like, duh, losing your mind, like trippin'? Whad'cha smoking there, dude?"

For many quarantine is a new phenomenon, a strange situation in which you feel incarcerated, no chance of stepping out without chancing a fight with the warden's thugs. But I have - sadly - realized this is not as foreign to me as I had expected. It brings memories, you see, back to my 19-year-old self. And I see that even now there many changes which I have neither embraced nor taken, for fear, for fear of having something that I'd enjoy more having -  not as in possessing -. I talked to others, pointed my finger and called out cowardice, all the while having three fingers point at me with a clenched fist. The Rules of Three! That which you denounce against The Other is thrice aimed at you.

Then I realize more things I should have braved, so many my 19-year-old self  had expected me to brave. I tell him "but can't you see how far I've taken us?", but his reply is "you're still the same old me in an ageing bone-case, I can see myself inside of you, but you are not who we needed to be, how we needed us to be".

I have disappointed him. I should maybe start caring a little more for him, so long had I longed for him to go away that now that I see that we are drifting apart I want to hold on to him, I don't want to lose him...

Hello Darkness, my old friend...