mmmdclxxv

The Disengagement Dance

I tend these
days to go
about my
business,
my routine,
in fits and
starts and
with such
swoop and
such swerve
just to get
out of the
way of
humanity
all the while
hungry for
anything
that might
resemble
social inter
action. It’s
such a pickle
of a problem,
this conflicting
push and pull
towards and
away from
engagement,
that if I find
myself think
ing on it as I
pinball my way
through people
getting from
wherever I was
to wherever I
am going, I
become so
overwhelmed
by the imposs
ibility of it all
that sometimes
my dizzying dance
will come to a sudden
standstill. And in
that frozen
state this
dilemma
will swell
within me
until I be
come so
saturated
with this
conflict—
this push
and pull I
feel with
those with
whom I
perform
this daily
topsy-turvy
choreography—
that it dominates,
it takes me over,
filling me with
such vertigo that
it is all I can do to
remain standing
in that wobbly
state, my two
feet glued to
the ground,
the world
blurrily
swirling
around
about me.
Eventually,
I find com
fort in the
awareness
that I have
been here
before, and
that soon
again, I’ll
somehow
be able to
lift a foot
and take
a step in
hopes to
move
again
towards
whatever
my next
destination
will be. And
that direction,
ever forward,
just up ahead,
is the only
direction
that exists,
is the very
one that
got me
here in
the first
place,
despite
all of the
twisting
and turn
ing and
veering.
And then
I’m off
again,
dancing
erratically,
as I always
do, with you
and you and
you and . . . .