fool's gold

my eyes are tired. I spend more time looking at illuminated screens than anything else. the day is an accumulation of digital exchanges. when I work from home I can spend an entire day without saying a word. sometimes I catch myself singing along to a song I didn't realise I enjoyed. maybe it reminds me of somewhere else or somebody or a moment in time. maybe the words resonate with something I've felt. maybe I just like the tune.

I hear my friends' voices on the phone. most of the people I love are out of reach. my phone lets me feel a little closer, though I miss being held. I take for granted how it feels to be occupying space with someone important whilst it's normal. someone important moves or disappears and it's only then with the lack of what was so easy and consistent that I realise how lucky I've been. longing for closeness is familiar to the point of comfort, though I still find home in friends around me. I am kept warm by the knowledge that I am loved and my love is treasured by some. I am embraced and forced to reassess how I've learnt to see myself. for some, I am not too much, no matter how I feel. 'I am who I am and I have the need to be'.

if I look close enough at anything I laugh a little inside at the realisation that it is my choice to make meaning or dismiss all that I witness and experience. the same goes for passing thoughts and feelings, at least I think. I make lists of what I lack, now including the discipline to let go of my parasitic dependence on validation and what it is about me that repels them when they look too closely. leaves in a stream. clouds in the sky. tracks I can skip if I don't want to sing. I rewrite poems on my phone to nurse my ego. 'I can still be who I want to be'.

wake up and open your eyes. the world is big and tired and burning and there is very little I can do. I hold on to what I have. I am lucky to be when others cannot. if I say it enough it can feel like the truth.