This was written as part of my February “Poetic Writing” challenge in an attempt to try and get out of the habit of being worried about the raw state of things.


Today I haven’t felt quite like myself. Myself: something I’ve never really given much thought to. It may be far outside my philosophical wheelhouse, but aren’t I always myself regardless of the state? In either case, I don’t quite feel like myself today.


I walk alone in the dark. Intermittent street lamps outline objects in the dark and the evening silence sounds like cars on the freeway, dogs in the distance, and that low and ever-present hum of life. Occasionally sounds, less distant, bring me back from wherever I was. I come out here to think; to ask questions only the universe can answer. One might suppose I come out here when I don’t quite feel like myself.


If you could be me you might see the energetic explosions of light and color and sound that I often experience just existing. Perhaps the many lives I’ve lived and have yet to live screaming to find their way toward the light. In spite of its beauty, it eats away at me.


Sometimes I take a walk alone in the darkness, in the quiet, when I don’t feel quite like myself so that I can feel more like myself.