Nothingness

There is nothing at all so grand about nothingness; nothing quaint, chic or even remotely liberating.Vacuums exist to be filled, supposedly. Though we appear to relish so marvelously in emptiness sometimes.

There is nothing in so much…

The train door opens and a complete stranger appears; suddenly there is somebody, anybody – right there. He is nameless, unrecognizable, and incomprehensible and yet, I know him. He becomes an extension of me; my thoughts, my emotions, my vision and perception of the day; the time, fate, the redness of the central line, the angle of the sunlight as it hits his unknown yet altogether familiar face…

I lift my eyes, ever so gently – as if my face were made of porcelain, my eyelashes; flickers of cloud. I peer into his nameless palette. ‘Hello’…. I spell the word before my eyes…Hello. I part my lips, the word does not form and it cannot form. A blink. His face evaporates –

He is no one, nothing at all – yet, as the doors of this rocket ship shoot open, I turn back. Do I expect to bid him farewell? Maybe. I dare not defy convention.

Defeated, I walk away from the waiting doors; exasperated in their pursuit to unite me and the no-named someone. I peer through the dying concrete of the crumbling station; am I so easily sold the fictional reality of x-ray vision? Light shoots past my eyes and when I regain focus, I am left with the train track imprints – on my nothingness.

Isn’t that just what nothing is…?

Nothing is the first gush of air that hits my artificially concealed face like a million tiny bullets; mercilessly ripping away the material flesh to conquer buried vulnerability as I gently protrude my head from the giant hole in my wall – sunrise.

Nothing is the poised, arrogant seduction of jazz at unforeseeable hours – the caress of sounds all too familiar, which taunt indecision and cackle boisterously at the word ‘cultured’.

Nothing is the arch of tiptoed feet on cold, uninviting marble as the mind seeks nourishment in the undefeatable darkness of the schizophrenic kitchen.

Nothing is in the uninhibited, formless sway of the candle flame that caresses the warm midnight air, illuminating empty eyes in golden brown and orange – speaking poetry in the form of dream, aspiration, endless opportunity…

Nothing is mine and everything I want it to be.