important magazine – Chapin City Blues

I can’t quite place my finger on it. It’s a touch from some distant, long-time lover come back after a long hiatus. The sweet caresses of a lover’s lips upon the skin. It is the sun radiating off the morning dew upon my once playground. It is the cool breeze after a long day of work. The scent of impending rain. It is the choir of children on Christmas Eve. The laughter of a Halloween night. I know this feeling coursing through my veins.

Born to Run

I was a child once, hard to believe. I remember being smaller, needing help, seeing the world in front of me and knowing that someday I’ll be a part in it. My childhood was a music video for a Stina Nordenstam song. Fields, meadows, fireworks bursting in the sky. Innocence in a world of sin.

But something happened. Something I cannot fully explain. Not an event like a rape, or abuse. Nothing so brutal. Nothing so hurtful. I just stopped. And I no longer wanted anything to do with the world, exiled rather than hold a part in it. It was always there, I just held back. It grew worse in adolescence. And while this generation awaits a vampire lover or an owl with a note, I waited for a man in a wheelchair to tell me I was different, special. That while I did not know it at the time, I would change the course of the world – for the better or worse.

New Soul

It’s a daydream I revisit over and over in the past. I sit typing up a storm at – presumably – my desk. I’m working on something great, I just know it. An article for an important magazine? The next great American novel? A tour-de-force, investigative report on the some current politician/event? It doesn’t matter because as I’m working on this great prose, I am interrupted by the laughter of a child, a toddler. I turn my attention to the sound.

She – presumably my daughter – is playing on the floor. She’s in a light, floral dress. As on cue, she looks up from whatever adventure her toys are having and smiles at me. And everything else is placed on hold until later. I decide it’s time for a walk.

The elevator dings. The doors slide open.

Suddenly, Life Feels Like An E.L.O. Song

I wake up tired. My body screams for more sleep. Depression usually comes with this. It’s a warning signal to my body – this guy’s depressed, get him some sleep. Only, I’m not depressed. At all. There isn’t a negative thought in my head. There isn’t some dread of waking up. There isn’t a groan of having to face another pointless day of pointlessness.

Instead, I’m that other feeling. That one that I remember so fondly from my childhood. The one that had me running and jumping and shouting with jubilation. The one where I feel like I can speak with the world. And while it’s no longer in front of me, I know that somehow I’ll be a part of it.

What is this feeling? So foreign, but familiar.

I’m not used to such elevations in my mood. I don’t know what to do with the energy that spills out. It’s going to take some time to readjust to this long lost brother, but I know I’ll do just fine.