Self-Preservation
WE 1987 WE 1969
—Vanessa Huang
today i am distracted by
what would, under (let’s
call them) normal circum
stances be a minor disturb
ance, a blip, something quite
easily fixed. an obstacle the
obliteration of such is like
flipping a magical switch and
KABOOM! it is gone. a flick that
removes all too much life when
the general circumstances—as they
were, as they might have been—have
sunk. and that’s when somebody says
that they’ve (with a whew!?) finally
hit rock-bottom, it is as if they drove
their own self there with some sort of
gotta get there deliberation, with
intent, so as to, what, rise above it?
nope, no way, i say. when one has been
dealt a particular hand, when i have....
when i was dealt a particular hand,
i found myself in a circumstance so
abnormal, so unfamiliar...when i look
around and there is no one—NO ONE—
to get me out of it, and, my means
(mental, physical, most often financial,
or whatever) are not those which i have
become accustomed over a life, a half-
decade of life (which finds me with,
significant, a living that’s dwindling
already, as in there’s not time to
dawdle with one more obstacle, but)....
when i realize that a problem that
would have been essentially solved
with the snap of a finger now might
take a year or two just to get around
or over. oh how to disintegrate it so that i
might find myself moving forward (forward?)?
well, i suppose that in most cases i will
determinedly, confusedly and deliberately
make my way past that obstacle, will
solve the goddamned problem and move
in the direction i keep seeing as ahead,
toward the better, which becomes such
a muddle to contemplate, this determining
has so much time and yet no energy or mind
to do anything except just do the work required
to blow up whatever is keeping me from getting
there. wherever there is. and wherever that
where is, in my mind it’s always to a place where
all of this extra time that is required in getting rid
of whatever keeps me from getting there shortens
back into the moment it takes to, say, snap a finger
or wriggle my mouth or my nose, or nod my head like
jeanne or samantha, or tap my feet together and
whisper there’s no place like home. or look to my
right or left, or shout the name of the person in the
room next to me in a little pretend cry for help. but
that sounds like fiction now, something i dreamed
up to bide the time it takes to get through with such
work that my entire being is a machine that is out of
oil, needs a heart, is incessantly trying to drum up
some courage (but from where?) and the motivation
to get beyond whatever it is that is in my past. my path
to wherever it is that is familiar, that is life, so that
when i wake up, there everyone is, that loving pan
orama of support, each babbling head is telling me that
from what i awaken is just a bad dream. just a bad dream?
life begins again, right? so much life that the dream
that seemed to last forever was just an anomaly that,
with distance (created by time, by real life), becomes
smaller and smaller until it is not but a blip, otherwise
known as the brunt of my education, perhaps? or my
final exam? it’s too soon to know? but, sure, a cocoon,
so to speak, wherein i hibernate for so long that i break
through refreshed and yet ravenous. oh, to be back among
the living. who would not, when one is lost....? back to the
joys of the living, yes, that’s what’s for me. or will be. soon.
living and learning and wacky adventure. family and friends.
yes, sir! i do hope that everyone’s already here, already
gathered around me for when i awaken. because, yes,
i shall be doing that soon: awakening. but was it a
beautiful dream? or was it not? and were you not
there? and were you? and were you? and what about
you? i can barely see as i open my eyes. you are there, but
exactly who’s you? thankfully, these things will come back
to me soon, in a windfall, of course. and all of these memories
fuzz up the terror. so much so that i just thought i had an
adventure. but wasn’t it only a dream? i made some imagined
friends on a long and fantastical journey. memories make me
happy. but these ones are fading so horribly fast. they fade into a
reality with which i collide. at last i’m so ready for it to arrive.
