Went downtown this morning. Visit to the old farmers market. Haven't been in two years. Pandemic-related. Use to go every Saturday. It was so familiar yet so very much the same. Wrap your head around that one. But for once, this time in a swath of persons I walked through and I felt sane. Maybe it's coming to terms with things or maybe it's the fact that I've acknowledged being an adult, or being older or just being in control. When I looked around every person was just another body. Another corpse, another sack of water exhibiting smiles and joy and communicating so many feelings that will all turn to dust. Ash and dust. It puts everyone on the same level, when you think about it. It calms the body. I'd thought this before, but never in a large crowd. Always when I was isolated away and staring at the lights on my screen and I use to feel left behind. Always left behind, like my reoccurring nightmares. Always late to something, always last in line, always alone in any empty elementary school when every other kid had already gone home. But I was just feeling abandoned by my loss. Because you see my previous partner left me behind, then my best friend joined several months later. It was as if they had some secret coded message that only they could hear. They RSVP'd and chose each other for their +1. But I realize now, it's not an invitation that's exclusive. We all get that card in the post, eventually. I guess.. in the past I didn't feel like I knew what I was doing. That everyone had this hidden agenda and secret language. But when I walked through the market and looked at all those faces, the muscles moving behind their skin-smiles it was almost as if a curtain had been moved. Or the stage had lifted in such a way I saw the orchestra pit. I watched all their curling that their skin would make, one day.

A slow dehydration that would crest the teeth and ♥♥♥♥ their head back in a pose of relaxation and comfort. Smiling wide gaps. Atrophied arms and legs. Maybe it was just me stopping myself from being humble, or being humble and not caring. I guess I just know what I'm doing now.

I would have ended myself just to hear your voice, and broken my chosen path just to believe more lies. You were an abstract vision of what I assumed I needed, and what I needed and wanted at the time were so far away from my reach that I couldn't even begin to formulate the thoughts needed to accurately survive. Those that were around me, the ones that immediately dropped, or put up offense, or thought somehow they were friends with me by proxy suddenly became petrichor. They smelled so nice from far away but up close were just dirt and ♥♥♥♥ suddenly all polished and shined and echoing to be seen and they faded just as quickly as the cumulus. Just before you could tell another person about the haze drifting in the air before the quick Florida shower shucked all those greens and yellows for ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ cloudless azure.