Weightlifting in a silent and lonely gym, I lay underneath the bar, listening to music. My iPod randomly selects Annie Lennox's hauntingly sad song, "Why". No. Not that song.
It was a sleepless night. Too many thoughts. Too much going on. The sadness wasn't here, yet, but it was coming. I awoke at 3:30 a.m., tossed and turned for an hour unsuccessfully attempting to return to sleep. Finally I gave in to whatever my nagging mind was saying, and by 5 a.m. I was at work.
Lack of sleep and sluggishness let the bad thoughts creep into my consciousness. It's as if the psychological immune system was down, and the infections of ideas I'd rather avoid thinking about surface opportunistically. I was tired and powerless to think of anything else.
I'm tired and I don't want to lift this weight, and a sad song comes on. No. No. Not now.
How many times do I have to try to tell you
That I'm sorry for the things I've done?
And when I start to try to tell you
That's when you have to tell me, Hey
This kind of trouble's only just begun.
Tell me.........Why?
Promises made. Promises kept, and promises broken. The infinitely bifurcating future taking me forward, always forward. If I don't make a decision, that too is a decision, but complacency is the secret death, the death of a thousand tiny moments, until they accumulate with such weight and mass that they crush life and love and hopes and dreams.
I may be mad,
I may be blind,
I may be viciously unkind,
But I can still read what you're thinking.
And I've heard it said too many times
That you'd be better off besides
Why can't you see
This boat is sinking?
Let's go down to the water's edge;
We can cast away those doubts.
Some things are better left unsaid,
But they still turn me inside out.
Tell me.........Why?
Tender moments: a hand on a back, in the middle of the night. A sigh. A rustle. Hearing the sound of a deep intake of air: someone inhaling fully to capture your nighttime musky smell, to make you her own. Hair splayed over bare shoulders. A leg stirring. A hand moving. The most exquisite
No. No. Not now.
Perhaps: Not ever.
This is the book I've never read.
These are the words I never said.
This is the path I'll never tread.
These are the dreams I'll dream instead.
This is the joy that's seldom spread.
Thes are the tears, the tears we shed.
This is the fear. This is the dread.
These are the concerns of my head.
I am tired, and waves of sadness break over me. I am powerless to resist the song. A tear trickles down, glides down the lined face, and drops to the blue vinyl covered bench.