And there, underneath the tall grass lie all of the Words. Malignant creatures created by our greeds. With wry smiles they point their pointed fingers, spells cast out like a net catching those wide eyed and stupefied, the ones yearning for the meaning they carry. These are the creatures that keep the Dance of the River song alive.

When I wake up in the morning I hear the river song play. I’ve heard it before. But this morning I can hear it breathing. Its drums moving each foot like strings attached to the one who plays with us from above. Who knew that life would unfold in the way that it has? Senseless days illuminating the next day. Like shadows playing a vicious game of hide and seek with each other, the one where there’s no winners. I’ve too much time on my hands. Fuck! I’d scream inside. When faced with the option of staring at the time and inside nothing moves, you feel like a wave is drowning you. How can I be so disconected. The whole machine. It ticks along, a perfect series of complicated cogs unwinding making things look easy. I look and I smile in mild jealousy of the simplicity of what it could be like. What it could be like. How can I be disconnected? You’re doing it. You’re living it. And yet I don’t feel the cogs turning.

As I keep walking, I notice my back begin to slouch. Maybe its the knowing I’ve let myself down. Well, not todays version of me, anyway. But the one from a while back. Where there was a spark in his eye. Where the foot would tap in nervous excitement. The one where no one would ask you to smile more. A quick look back and you can see a pattern emerge. A sparkle in the eye and smile on the face. Yeah. That happy fat lost kid smiling away unknowing of what I would lead him into. I look at him. I cry. I want to give him a hug but I can’t. He’s happy. Is he? But I can’t seem to get close enough to him. Maybe because he’s not fucking real! Maybe it’s all bullshit. It’s words that get minced and repeated. Words that make the person speaking feel like they have control, like they know what it is. But everyones fucking clueless aren’t they? No one truly knows. It only makes them feel better and so be it, if so.

My feet begin to clam up, the water is oozing inside, its freezing, like what I’d imagine outer space to be like. Imagine it? Just for a moment. Floating there, but you’re not looking at earth, fuck that – you’re looking out there. The infinite. It’s peaceful that. I let myself float up here sometimes. Just staring out, thinking of what I’ll be eating later that day. Or, what my life would be like if I had a dog. Or what would have happened if I just said sorry. But then they point their finger and I’m back.

It was warm where I grew up. There was big green tree’s, spiralling high above me, the ones that make your feet dizzy like jelly as you gaze up to them past up to the stars. What a treat. The smell of the pine trees, watching the sap from the tree oozing out in the summer. And the land! The land was dry and cracked and it smelled of all the herbs you could possible think of! Each step was an adventure then. It was a moment to wonder! A chance to breathe. To be alive. There were more questions than answers then. I think that kid used to be happy. I don’t think he knew much about himself. He was just taking it day by day then. But he soon begun to hear the song, and the sounds of the Words footsteps, marching far across the mountings. It was just dust then, dust rising up into the sky, and when it began to rain, it rained a clay like, light brown rain. Thats as far back as I can remember.

When I walk sometimes, well, often, I would think it would be easier to not exist for a while. I’d feel guilty for having the thought for a while. About who that thought would hurt. Not forever, mind, just a while. Its not that you want to stop existing. But when the River starts to really get going, and the song grows really fucking loud sometimes, and its so overwhelming, because its all that you can hear, and you begin to feel the water rising at your feet and suddenly It drops. And you’re left, alone. And you feel nothing. Empty. What it is, is that you want everyone to know that you are drowning, that’s the one! Yeah, you want people to fucking care, right? You want people to say sorry. Because none of them really know what its like, do they? All you want is for them to jump in there and just to hold you for a while.

It’s been a long time since someone held me like that. Like you could die and it wouldn’t matter because all that there is, is that moment, and everything else just floats on by, its like for just that moment you’ve detached yourself from the gel of reality and its the two of you, outside in this cosmic womb that’s pure eternal love. You’re held, hand in hand, in space wrapped around each other, where there’s no beginning and no end, simply looking out, remember? It’s everything and it’s nothing both at the same time.

Ah! to not exist for a while. It’s the ultimate call, the ultimate Bat signal, eh? Theres a childlike hope that a fucking HENCH superhero will come crashing down from the sky to rescue you, and maybe they’ll hold you for a while. Because for a while, its ok to be that little kid again, so you let yourself go and you tell people how you feel, and you open up about it all and for a while it feels good, but soon you feel the distance grow and they look at you differently then. Hey! just look at you, they pity you, they don’t want you anymore, you were fun for a while, you made them laugh, love, giggle and they told you you’re the one, but somewhere along the line the words changed their song, and you’re not fun anymore, I’m not the one, and I don’t make them smile anymore and now the Words get re-written. Shapeshifting Word beasts, like leeches they drain until nothing is left, and so like before they move on. When you look up enough times and all you see are those muddy clay clouds, your superhero eventually looks like a grotty torn costume monster in the shape of a massive rocket to knowhere line of ketamine or wild isolation. These are the true superheroes, they never leave, see?

So I just walk. At this point of the journey I’m humming the song by now. As my head grows heavier its hard to not miss that I’m walking in the river now. My feet are soaking but they have been for a while. I cry for a few more steps. Then I stop for a few more. Then I peek above, wiping my eyes to see clearer and see a pink flower blooming. Or I see an old couple holding hands. Maybe even a stranger smiles and says hi. Or if I’m really lucky, I’ll see a cat waiting for me at the end of the road, waiting ever so patiently, a deep purr at the ready, to be touched, to radiate that warming sound to those waiting to listen.

But then the water is up to my shoulders, creeping gently upward towards my head. My legs, moving mechanically, pulled along by the strings attached to each. The hum is loud enough now that I think the whole world can hear it. But looking around no one seems to be dancing to the song like me. No one seems to know the Words. See there are times where one forgets the song exists. You look past it sometimes, you might catch a glimpse of the light bouncing off of the surface. You may even see it, gently lapping against your shore. But see what happens is, someone takes you by the hand and you turn your back to the river, so you forget its there, don’t you? Like the seasons the river dries patiently waiting for it to rain. When you think you truly have someone walking with you, by your side. A person to hold your cheek when it droops low, feeling the heat from the hand you finally feel safe enough to close your eyes for a while. When they walk with you, not in front or behind but with you, no rush and no place to go, sometimes they say something that makes you stop. Makes you turn to them, makes you pull them close so that your bellies are touching, and you hold eyes for a moment. Then, after what feels like forever they’d smile, and look down and away. They’d ask you what you are looking at. And you’d try and respond. But nothing would come out of your mouth. You feel your mouth wanting to move but it stays frozen. But you both know. You can see it in each others eyes. You can sense it in the tightness of each of your breaths. Thats life that is! Thats heaven that is! When you feel their soft stomach, slowly rising and falling. When you smell their sweet warm breath on your neck. Or when the tuft of hair rolls across your face. Because it’s not that you’re not alone then, it’s that you begin to exist then. And so the world seems less scary then, doesn’t it? The enormity of it all gets swallowed up with the want to build a life with them. Craft a home from wood. Roll on the ground. Pick them up just to hear how sweet their high pitched voices go. I’d give anything for that. Just to feel that peace.

Then, with a sigh at the memory of it all, I forget about it for a while, so that I can remember tomorrow. And now I am under the river, and now when I look up, I can see a beam of light, a faint one mind because the water is so high, its the sunshine peeking through and its glistening down at me, and so I stand there for a l little while, and its glorious for just that moment.

And then, I look back down, and I keep walking.