It doesn't seem to me that only flesh and blood hold a thing such as a life force. Whatever this energy that carries our meat bags around truly is, it must also inhabit things that are by our definition inanimate. Things that are both small and that have towered over us for ages.
I was small then, when I felt an attachment to insignificant things. Bits of shoelace and sheets that I wrapped around me like armor. It's was very lucky of us to be surround by small plastic toys and aging books. These things had true meaning in them. Not simply for the words the books held but for their placement as bricks in my ever growing tower of knowledge.
Where books had their dragons, the plastic toys had their true personas played out in derivatives of that learned fiction. Wars would be played out under the legs of my bed frame. Stories constructed deep in innocent imagination, magic running straight from my flesh to their fragile plastic figures.
These insignificant things somehow acted as both my creations and parts of my core self at the same time. The very dirt I ran on as a child, the aged single walled constructed house, and the pot hole littered easement are threaded into something that looks like my home, but feels like a memory.
Time has now passed and though the plastic toys are gone they still feel alive. It may just be an overwhelming imagination, but I still touch my car as if it was my living stead. I still have the toy armies in my head fighting for innocent truths.
In this perishable world where time consumes all things, are we not to be obliterated as well? Creatures of bleeding, aging, blasphemous power, will we not be consumed by time until nothing is left. As it is so, I hope to find all my things whatever or wherever is next. They are parts of me, and where ever they end up, I sense I will follow.
It's amazing how much we store in the places we call home. All of our secrets, memories, and achievement's locked into the vault of our safe space. We venture into the world relieving ourselves of our burdens as if they were anchors weighing us down.
It's understandable when it feels like we are taking on water. Drowning in the person(s) we became. For some of us it is easier and healthier to run. There is no weakness in that. To explore the world and discover your other selves. Uncovered treasures buried in the “what if's” of the world.
For other's there is no escape. Perhaps they feel trapped in their hometowns, and maybe that's has been the only world they have ever known. However, it is the same world isn't it? Every place we go. Where we find the strings that connect us back to home, wherever it may truly be. A coffee shop on the corner of the street, a memory of sitting outside watching the sun rise while you sipped on a latte with your siblings. Rushing from your car to a store with no umbrella as it rains, the laughter of running into the rain as a child.
There is no shame in the wonders of it all. Both those that are far and those that are home. There are only the eternal leaves. They will be there as you walk down the street at home with a satisfying crunch under your feet. They will fall and change in color in the land that bellows with magical snow. It's never been about where you are, but understanding that it's the same place you left.
Even in the places where the leaves are sparse or none can be found you find a sprout of something trying. Cause everything and everyone is. Trying, trying to find their place, but wouldn't it be wild if that place is where you are standing now? Isn't the sky the same wherever you are? Isn't the stars the same constellations that exploded in your youth.
Seasons or not, when the winds change, they change everywhere. Somewhere in that wind someone is laughing, dying, crying, but ultimately trying. Have you noticed the eternal leaves at all? Floating by you everyday. From the bottom of our toes to the tips of our hair. The kisses in autumn and the tears of lonely winters. They are the recollections of our home, dancing with us wherever we stand. Exactly where we belong.
I've noticed lately that I take less photos than before. I wasn't sure if that was because I am trying to experience the moment, trying to enjoy it as much as I can, or if it was because some memories aren't meant to last forever, hidden in the endless scroll of our phones. We used to share less and mean more. Perhaps we use to feel more, see more, and live more, at least I think I did. Maybe it's all been a trick. Sometimes, it feels like we have been asleep this whole time.
I have no idea when I started running from the sound of time strumming it's strings. It's something indescribable, and have no recollection when the song even began. All I know is that I find myself running, to where? to who? It's unknown to me as of yet. It started maybe as a jog at first, with late night banters and dreams about endless love. I recall wearing armor to sleep, and pulling swords from stone in nightmares. Conquering the evil then and playfully enjoying the possibility of the endless. Yet the song still played. Now I plan my months hoping to glimpse the crumbs young me left behind.
All the lessons I found back then are just pieces of me now. An augmented being of memories, pain, love, and knowledge. Even with all that and as much as I try to muffle the sound out. The pluck of eternal strings still syncs with all of time. A sound of what I will be, what I was, and who I am. A lullaby played for those running out of time.