What days these have been.

What dreams have been dreamt?

I can recall little, or, none.

Miles and miles have I traveled and still, as I sit to write, what is it that is craved? What is it of life which beacons?

Dreams of forest and plains, and distance from the road, from the press of people, and of water. The passage of water and the stillness of the air.

When men are content with the work of their hands, and the press of their bodies. Muscles which move, contract, and loved ones, are,

safe.

This is it, isn’t it?

Contentment.

Drive.

Desire.

Conflict, challenge, chaos.

I see it.

I’ve witnessed it.

Who has not.

How similar and yet, how different we are, such a slight, slight matter of so few degrees.

I witness a change. An opening. A beginning. Chaos swirls about it. Anger. Frozen, calculated, hardened, rage. Made smaller by so many things. Designed to weigh a one down, even as lives, the formation of futures, hang, dangle, in the wind of the making.

Tools?

Pawns?

Leverage.

How everything changes, and lives are wrapped up in drama which never needed to occur.

Kings and Queens, Barons and Bishops. The stuff of history, and, it is no different than the angry, conniving neighbor, or, the jilted lover.

The first recorded murder in an ancient book which still frames the modern heart.

One thinking that by erasing another, that, what, what could be achieved?

That this would be a thing derived of by logic, twisted or not, that the spilling of blood would somehow elevate, or, vindicate?

And yet, we do that. Seek to annul one evil with another, when, simply stopping, simply, changing direction, pausing, taking a breath, facing our fear, our shame, and, moving on, putting our back to the thing which offends, and, closing our eyes, holding our tongue, containing our rage, rage that is rightly directed inward, at ourselves,

closing those eyes, and,

accepting, and,

moving on.

Forgetting.

But, we don’t.

We destroy. We turn that rage against those who are not party to our evils, and make them the bearers of it, to purge it from ourselves, as if that won’t stain us further,

And we burn the world down.

How human.

Not to forget. Not to move on. Not to hold our tongue and master our own sin.

Isn’t that what we are warned of?

That sin is at our door, and, we must master it, or, it will rule us.

I have seen so much death, from negligence, and, some from rage, on the road. Where everything happens so quick, and then, takes generations to work out, if, ever.

Loss and a changing, an, irrevocable change. Things which can never be taken back.

Why then, don’t we pause, when we have time. Take a breath. Let the shame settle, let the fear hover, pass, be blown away by a calm, persistent wind, pause, close the eyes.

Accept.

Allow.

Move on.

So easy to say?

What fear we have, to be seen thusly in another’s eyes. That all will see us for what we know ourselves to be.

But, they don’t see us, for, they are the same.

Pause. Take a breath.

Move on.