A Plea Before Forever

Time can be a liar, a joker, a magician, a fool, and a navigator. It will try to make you think that where you are is a permanent place, right before it tries to make you think again a second later. And when it has convinced you that nothing lasts, and nothing is worth keeping, it gives you a miracle.

You might, right now, feel betrayed by the seemingly random events that have brought you, and many of us, to this moment. You are at a hopeless edge of the cliff, where your only choice is to jump to where others have already jumped, to the river below, to partially drown in the waters of hate, partially swim while taking half breaths of resentment, to crash against the river rocks that bruise conformity into the flesh, and partially drown again before taking another half breath. And when the current slows to wash you against the first available shore, you reach out and grasp at the first handful of dry soil, and crawl, grateful, toward whatever salvation is not the river.

This is a plea to not let the drowning water drown you. This is a plea to not let the river rocks crush you. This is a plea to stand as soon as you reach the shore, and to look around, look far, look inward, to find something else.

It may be under your fingernails, wedged between tender skin and the layers of worldly crust that have accumulated while you were clawing at whatever was within reach. It may be the very first thing that you trusted when you were a child, an honest instinct that doesn’t discolor with age. It may be your first clear breath after you cough your lungs of everything that had been the drowning river. It may be as simple as seeing your bare footprints, how they mark fresh paths without the protection of shoes, the comfort of carpet, the apathy of concrete.

Whatever it is, it is your other name, what others would be calling you if names were never given, if words never existed. It is why you have breathed this long, regardless of how much air the world tries to deny you. It is your weapon, your shield, your shelter, your stronger arms, your more powerful legs, the armor that will not allow your spine to be broken.

But you have to find it, or you will be broken.

So, wait for the tide to recede, and move when it stops pulling you. Make sure you are steady, and move when it stops pulling you. Make sure that your eyes are clear, your mind true, and your heart pumping without a drop of regret. Then go.