Not Now.

By Bobby Burcham.

I don’t notice my wet feet from traffic spraying black oily water as puddles explode from tires.
A greenish gray January sky seems to be leaking, a dew, from metal and evergreen shrubs, or is it the melting snow?
I shiver, not because of the weather, but because of what isn’t inside me. There’s an emptiness that has nothing to do with my fleece lined coat or lazy metabolism.
I feel as if I’m at a cemetery funeral as a shroud of clouds threatens to cry the tears I somehow manage to hold inside.
Yes, there’s beauty in the world, somewhere, and there are dark things also that no one wants to think about, or discuss.
A cold strong fist squeezes my chest; I swallow against the lump that threatens to choke me. My heart races and my face flushes. I feel like I am sweating but I’m chilled through.
I convince myself I’m still alive. I try to reassure myself, this is what it is to be alive. It’s the price! We all have a choice, we can live, feel and suffer, or we can simply exist. Have I simply existed too long?
Somewhere, not inside my head, there is a crash, a loud angry voice – I am brought back to now. I hear again the annoyed growl of traffic and glance at the ominous concrete and glass - the indifferent crowds that do not cure my loneliness.
I don’t like now! I want to go somewhere else, but I don’t know exactly where ‘else’ is, or how to get there.
But is it somewhere, or is it someone? Was there a ‘someone’? Why have I erased the memories of that “someone”? Were they too painful?
Why did they take so much of me with them? Why couldn’t they just leave and not leave me void?
I walk but with out a destination. I have to stay moving. I don’t recognize where I am and that is a relief. I imagine I am on a journey, facing a new world, a glimpse of a new life, with out the old memories.
Only a glimpse and I am back in now. I don’t like now - somewhere in the past, or in the future, maybe, but not now.
Not now!