Sometimes she sat alone, feeling the life seeping out of her. Slipping from her lids only to be reclaimed by a horrid, ragged breath. She felt as she thought, something missing, or missing something. Sometimes she wished the breathing would stop and let the life drain from her completely. Sometimes she could temporarily ward off that inward, dragging breath, but something deep within her would always take control and the breath would come, gasping and lapping at the life-puddle surrounding her feet. Sometimes she wondered where that controlling force came from; it was deeper than the breath that ached and burned itself deep into her chest, deeper than the origin of her life as it spilled over her cheeks. Sometimes she felt completely at the mercy of the involuntary - she woke, she breathed, she crawled beneath her skin. Sometimes she found herself in the company of her stranger acquaintances and felt so utterly separated from their willingness to give themselves to the inward, she felt as though she was more than that; somehow floating alone and above it all, perched precariously on an unseen wire that heaved and sighed with her shifting weight. Sometimes she would look down on the others and watch as they released and reclaimed their existence; marvelling at how they could unquestioningly give themselves to the involuntary, and then she would feel over-aware and exposed, although they could not see her. Sometimes during those naked moments, she would stand and question her own inability to surrender herself. Sometimes she envied those below her; craved their simple acceptance of the involuntary being part of life. And sometimes she caught a glimpse of something that told her the involuntary, the inward, was not part of life, but commanded it. Sometimes she thought she saw the power of this other entity, the Purpose, gliding around her; tendrils of blue-grey smoke snaking around the tip of an extended finger, or exhuming itself from a spoken word. Sometimes she glanced around her, through other women, wanting to envelop herself in their involuntary, she wanted to drink from their lips and inhale their Purpose; sometimes she was sure that she could, but she knew that in that intimacy lay further questions and confusions; wondering if those passions would complete her, if they equated to love, if such a thing even truly existed. Sometimes she read things that she supposed evidenced that there were others like her - similar souls drifting, questioning, not wanting or not able to give to the inward. Sometimes she would sit and write of these things she could not quite fathom, trying to unravel the mysterious tendrils, somehow thinking she could unknot them with her pen, spread them out and see the Purpose. Sometimes she thought she would succeed and then her perception would shift and the thoughts would quickly swim away from her and tangle together more tightly than before. Sometimes she thought she heard the Purpose ticking a rhythmic melody from below her and she would drift down amongst the distant crowd, searching for the source but never finding it. Sometimes, frustrated by her odyssey, she saw the futility in the questioning, she yearned for the vacancy she perceived in the eyes of others, that stare that betrayed their unknowing exuberance in the inward. Sometimes she thought the ticking stopped, but in the silences unmasked by a temporary cessation in her breathing she would hear it again, sometimes loud, oft times faint, depending on her shortness of breath, and she would elevate slightly, the never-ending search continuing. Sometimes she was able to take a breif sojourn inward, allowing herself to be partially given to it, not caring about the Purpose, willing the ticking to stop and never start again, and then she would be snapped upward, again questioning, letting life slip from her, watching as it left and the sobs drew back in, willing the breathing to stop.

phoenix mckenna © Mon. 24 June, 2002

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