A Time .. Before

Today I am lonely.

I am surrounded by Tuchuk .. my people. Even friends and those who care about me personally.

But today I am lonely for someone who knows me. Understands me. That is a much more difficult proposition.

Those who I would say .. got close to me ... who got close to knowing me as a man ... are gone or their circumstances have changed and they have moved on. Today I wish for just one whose eyes tell me .. they recognize me.

Today I do not wish to explain myself. I do not want to feel disappointment when someone shows how painfully wrong they are about me. I want someone to believe in me .. not because they have faith ... but because they have experience.

Today I have no patience with faith. Faith has done nothing for me. I will pick it up and carry it around tomorrow when .. again ... I no longer care that I do so alone.

Today I feel as if I am a mere reflection cast from some other time .. a time before. I am out of place. I do not belong here. Not right now. I belong here before .. a time before ... where my true image is stuck. Mired in some kind of dimensional shift .. unable to advance.

I am not making any sense. I know what I mean .. but I also know that when I try to explain it there are no words to fit the way I feel. The language fails me. The expressions do not exist .. or I am ignorant of them.

Perhaps it is just this huge chunk of time I am missing. That I am unable to fill in with anything tangible. Perhaps it is to blame for this reflective feeling I am suffering right now. This inability to see myself .. feel myself .. correctly in this time and space. Desperate for someone to touch me .. make me feel real. I would give anything for that right now .. today.

I want someone to know why I am angry. I want someone to realize my frustration. I want someone to know why I am lost within my thoughts fighting for a sign from those around me that I am something more than shifting mist. That I am someone. That I will leave a mark behind me .. that I will be remembered for who I am and not just what I have done.

There is only one way I know how to deal with these thoughts .. to work ... to fight .... to sweat until I can barely move or breathe with exhaustion. Until my muscles scream and tighten into knots like rocks. To throw myself into the daily survival of a Tuchuk until I am too tired to feel any more.

I suppose if there really is no answer to it all .. I will at least be remembered for being a hard working man .. even if no one ever knows what sometimes drives me so hard.