To Each Their Own

(Lost In The Fog, 2009)

With stars crashing all around, I wonder how we survived. At first, I wonder how I survived, with a beating heart, and a hand in my hand. I felt lost, yes, buried under the ashes, buried under the rumble. I've become a mole, pale and blind, dirty and homely. An arm attached to a body, a face extends from there, and grows on me. I call it first light. To tell of wonders and such, to speak of things of imagination and dreams is to reach as far as your eyes could. But dreams reach as far as eye lids I tell myself. In the realm of Ifonly, where lingering thoughts dwell, and chance is enchantment. I dare not follow too deep, until I fall, break bone, and struggle to breathe again at the bottom of my well.

In a dark place I call my home, it is easier to live here, it is easier to conform to change, because it is easier to close my eyes and dream. And in time, the rocks and the slim form blankets to my comfort, I forget how to see, and believe there are stars beyond my well. For such things cannot exist, such as her hand still with mine, or sinking ships full of Aztec gold. It is an illusion, with shine and flicker, dancing before desire, I am drunk with my dreams I tell this demon.

I awake cold, and count the bricks that climb to the top. Counting each strain of muscle I see what I cannot, but do anyways. Brick by brick, I ascend. With slips of minor, and slipping a mind, I am sinking already but I push to stop such thoughts as I carry on. Each brick. In that dark-dark, it becomes a lighter shade of black, and detail starts to form before my eyes. I had forgotten my struggle to delusion, I am happy as I climb and climb.

Days pass, my arms are like sticks tapping against iron, my legs like old men doing the hammer dance, and I am surprised at my body, and perhaps my will. And in a moment, and in a scene, I hear a voice which sounds like me, but isn't me who fell down a well. No, it's the me that is still holding on, as he sings, line for line, starting with, and ending with, it is, it is the eye of the tiger; the will to survive.

...

I tell this story to my grandkids all the time, they used to like it but now they're older, driving cars, and listening to rap music. I try not to scare them away, or lose their attention, I try harder to get them to visit, but I would be lost without my son, my daughter, and my other son, Fredrick. I guess, I guess it is, after all, to each, their own, after all. Can't touch this! (as the author goes off to do the hammer dance)