"Oh, if life were made of moments,On Tuesday I woke up thinking that it was Wednesday and when I looked at the date and saw it was really Tuesday a string of obscenities came out of my mouth.
Even now and then a bad one--!
But if life were only moments,
Then you'd never know you had one."
Wednesday I woke up just wanting to get out. Get out of here, my insides screamed. It didn't matter where I went just as long as I went and never came back. The feeling has lingered all week long.
It's more than just a feeling in my head; it's a physical feeling. My whole body feels tense, like I'm prepared to run as fast as I can for as long as I can (not very long) to get away from something. I don't know what I want to run from, though. There's nothing there. Nothing's changed.
Still, I feel like I should stand up, walk out of here without saying a word to anyone, head to my car, and just drive.
Drive where?
South. Down the desolate valley and over the mountains. Along the coast through cities too crowded for me to stop. All the way to where the sun is, more or less, always overhead.
North. Up the desolate valley and over the mountains and then through another desolate valley feeling the temperature drop as the latitude gets larger and larger, but also smaller and smaller. Where there's a nip in the air all year round.
East. Over the mountains and across the desert. Through the salty flats. Over more mountains and into the plains -- the alley -- to watch how nature whirls.
West. Quickly across valley and onto the coast. Aboard a plane high above the ocean. To an island and then onto a ship or boat to an even smaller island.
Anywhere I can disappear.
The problem is that, in my head, I can't see anything after I disappear. As if me wandering off will just shut me down and there will be a completely new -- completely separate -- being inhabiting my body and I, if I exist at all, am not aware of anything.
That's not how it works, though. I would get somewhere and still have to think and reason so that I could decide and each decision will inevitably lead to another and then another without stopping. How is that better than right now?
Still, I can picture myself: sitting on a beach, skin redder than a beet; on a street corner dazzled by the age of the buildings; standing half in the shadow of a mountain, half freezing; dazzled at the abundance of life.
"But how can you know what you want
Till you get what you want
And you see if you like it?
All I know is-
What I want most of all-
Is to know what I want."
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