Zero

Pushing through the door, its weight is heavy on my tired body. I throw my side against it to get through the frame. My footsteps hit the pavement and I look down at my white sneakers that with each step pull out the bottom of my fitted jeans so I can barely see a quarter of them. as I pass below the light eminating from the parking lot lights I examine my shoes with each step. I look at the scuffs and scratches acquired from different nights and different stories that I told the next morning to my roommate or my best friends. Like an inherited diamond in a Japanese tradition the imperfections are reminders of my history. I put my hands in my back pockets and push my shoulders up to feel the warm night breeze that would leave by Thursday, or so the weather man said. My sleeveless white shirt fell loosely around me and allowed for the night air to breath hot across my stomach and over my back. My hair pulled back into a loose bun allowed the warmth to settle onto the back of my neck and over my ears. My eyes wandered up to the night sky to briefly count stars. There was no light pollution to burry the stars from my view allowing for an easy count that would last 3,000 years if I wanted it to. It reminded me of driving out to the corn fields, looking up to the heavens and screaming at the top of my lungs to get it all out, with only the cattle who would be sent to slaughter the next day; to hear me. I was walking along the pavement playing games with my feet, stepping forward and backwards, jumping and skipping then a circle step from heel to toe that eventually led into dancing. I didn't care if I looked like a fool to the people who had more productive things to do than study on a Saturday night. I stepped over cracks and counted my steps in each square until eventuallyI was going so fast it looked like a movie reel. My feet stepped over the film strip and each step was an imprint an event and marker in the movie of my life. My footsteps got louder as soon as I recognized the height of my shadow on the grass, I stomped up to make it's height shrink and grow and stretch. I remembered being a kid and desperately trying to sneak up to it and jump on its head, to see if one of these days I could be bigger than my shadow. I also remember trying to run faster than the gusts of wind on a mild summer day and dodging droplets of rain, not realizing that my body was to big even at 6 to be able to tell if it had hit me. Perhaps that was always how I felt and always what I wanted, to defeat the impossible, to learn about illusions and to see if in fact illusions were realities that I couldn't change. Isn't that an oxymoron? My mind got trapped as I grabbed onto the light pole and spun around to make my shadow spin with me, I thought about my choices and my life, everything leading up till now. I had always been training myself for this moment, and many more to come. Building up to learn when to accept illusion as necessary, let go and build anew and when to recognize the ability to turn illusion into reality and make it my dream and then make it come true. How many times had I ignored that in hopes of a perfect outcome? Ignoring it in hopes of a perfect ending and resolution, like a movie. It was simple I will live my life for better or for worse till death do I part from my self actualization and in that end perhaps I will find some semblance of perfection. My ideal will be achieved by making better choices like spinning around a lamp pole on a Saturday night when the rest of the world is sending itself to sleep.

wow, i like it