I am that close to it

 12-28

Each string of words is the latest in my attempts to explain the meanings of the universe because every morning when I wake up I can feel the answer running on the edge of my eyelids. When I pass the solitary hours driving around Jacksonville, turning my brain off with the aid of car speakers, I can almost discern the shape of what I am looking for amidst the ever-refreshing “opening sentences” that are constantly populating in my brain.

I am that close to it.

So close that every answer I am seeking out is a brightly colored goldfish standing still before me until I reach my hands out and everything I am looking for in the placid waters disappears beneath the obfuscation of chaotically rippled glass.

Rippled glass tempts me with promises to hold the answers still for a few moments, giving me a head start. I’m not so sure that this entity of woodsy-smelling comfort in the form of pillared smoke is actually a help or a hindrance, but this dance with the devil has loosened my fingers and my fingers dance as if the devil is still present. I feel much closer.

What is it that drives me to the pen? What is it about words that sucks me in so surely? The idea that black lines on blank paper can contain so many colors and shining surfaces, vivid images of any feeling you can conjure. What a captivating juxtaposition - perhaps that is how I’ve come to view pen-and-paper as a skill to learn.