I was not born but sacrificed into the world. Like the rest of us, I gave up something secret and essential when I came here, something I could not afford to lose but did.
The night is full of those lovely distractions that I must turn away from if I am to continue my journey and not lose more of myself than I already have. There are things that must be done and I am the one who must do them.
It is difficult if not impossible to explain this to anyone beneath forty, especially if they are made of the volatile elements. The distractions, the mirages and conjurors’ tricks seem real to them, as they did to me. I have had to learn to look beyond them to the far off dream, the one that calls to me over the horizon. I set my compass to it so as not to detour toward the shimmering oasis that hovers so tantalizingly close but leaves me dying of thirst.
It is our secret dreams that matter, the ones that scurry and do not declare themselves outright. They are the wild and eternal ones, the ones that will never give in to even the most rational of arguments. They are indomitable and they will have their way or haunt us to the end.
I realize now that life is only a side project. The day-to-day business of life is a sort of annoying static in the line. My dreams, what I can imagine but not touch, are far more real than the things I do by rote. Of course, like other people, I work, I toil, I do things — but all of this takes place many layers beneath the essence of things.
All this coming and going leaves me deeply exhausted, as if I am being torn into shreds by the poles of my existence. I hear the sound of laughter at one end and a slow grinding at the other. In the middle, my dreams try desperately to connect the two.
The by-product of this excruciating process is a fine dust that is all that will remain of my life when it is over. Before that happens, I press my heart into your hand so that you can feel its beating.
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