Two Faces

Sometimes you're the worm, sometimes you're its earth.

Clean, tiled floor and faux carpet. There are always 5 inches between your feet and the ground. If you weren’t so oblivious to the worms that play right beneath your sandals, your first thought would be to crush them to dirt.

“Rebirth?”

You would pick them up and ask in human words. The words would ring from one end to the other as you hold them in your hand, cupped in the shape of a half-earth. It’s like death dissolved their last remains. It’s like they never even existed.

In another world, you would wrap them around your neck to feed them your blood, and call it care. They could weigh down your shoulders, and you wouldn’t put them down. That’s the world where you are too close to the ground.

It’s all learnt, inscribed into your blood. You are so well taught. The blood in your veins, your puppeteer, strings you to behave the way you so detest. But, there’s no escape — you’re bound to serve.

In one forgotten memory, someone untied your body to scoop up your heart. They let you sink till you were numbed. You did not resist because they were up close. So flawless, so pure. So gentle, so soft. When the earth shook, they held your head intact, with their knees deep in mud. Both sinking, worlds apart.

Their care is a shovel in your dirt. It claims your teeth and nails while your body falls apart. But there’s no going back.

You know, the clouds, the flowers, and all the pretty little things are like hollow, passing nothings. If you hold your arms out, they pass right through. You love it, don’t you? With all its softness and your fragility. You love it more because it can’t hold you.

Why hold onto keepsakes? They are crooning reminders of emptied passages and lost baggage of careless passers-by. They’re nothing but an adventure-holic’s mark to find their way back to addresses they won’t return to.

You know, how they love the unknown and never the same thing twice.