This sudden rising of bile to the throat. Awakening?
No, awakening sounds too… noble.
Peering?
Peering out from within the warmth of my life dreams: striving
for ever-happiness-life-in-a-house-with-handsome-husband-while-cooking-perfect-meals-over-a-perfect-stove-published-author-writer-beautiful-good-daughter who wonders: Will-I-be-a-good-mother? Will-my-husband-leave-me? Will-I-fall-in-love-with-someone-else? What-about-money? What-if-my-father-dies? Shall-I-cut-my-hair?
Beyond all that.
Beyond the absurdity of all those ideas that control me
I awaken, no, peer. See:
Entertainment: The growing magnet of every generation
“Chill Pill” “Cool down” “Fun!”
Amusement. Play. Laughter.
Movies. Songs. Food. Games. Cruises. Romance novels. Holidays. Comedies. Shoes. Clothing.
I indulge. Bask in the excess
Shop. Dance. Chat. Pottery classes.
But sometime (rarely) these words and ideas lay themselves like
cloaks over:
Dead bodies. Torn limbs. One finger.
Blood. Broken houses.
Rape. Hate. Broken bones. Shattered minds.
Anguish.
Wars. Flood. Poverty. Injustice.
Hunger.
Hunger.
Words with curious kaffans* sitting oddly, distorted over these gross
things. Too flimsy to cover. Protect. Too threadbare.
The rottingness underneath.
The blood gradually stains the words
‘Fun!’ painted into creases, leaking over someone’s forehead.
Dripping into the corners of his vacant eyes.
‘Entertainment’ flaps in the wind
revealing a blue stiff arm beneath.
Who are these people? Do they exist in the world? Where did they come from? How are they existing in the same world as mine?
Why are they like that?
Why are they like that?
It’s like dancing in a room full of lights
with broken bottles on the floor.
Its a heady mixture of blood and fun in a bottle.
This contradiction.
This slight uneasiness.
Of being mindlessly entertained in a world drowning in death.
But perhaps the only way to survive the truth is to drown to death in other things.
Awakening, no, peering done. Back to the dreams of perfect-house-with-perfect-husband-with-perfect-teeth-who-says-mmmm-when-he-eats-the-steak-I-put-in-front-of-him. Where “Fun!” Amusement and Entertainment wrap me in a loving (suffocating?) embrace. Where I despair over pointless things like the boy who didn’t love me. The scars on my legs that wont ever go away. The girl who lied. Where the money will come from. Engulf myself in these matters.
But… uneasiness lingers,
the drowning, not death.
*Muslim burial shroud
"like this"
Keep questioning.
When we stop, it's when we cease to live