Is it Panic or Something More Sinister?

Time-bound fear or fear of time?

A mind rumbles with bad advice like a washing machine filled with broken glass. I chew on flourishing weeds and wet soil until I spit out dry dirt. I am the shadow of doubt. I am the purveyor of fear.

I am the conscience. I am the orchestrator of thoughts.

Powerless I am when power begs me just to be.

I inspire a worldly existence premeditated by expectations and delusions.

I administer exams on people, observe their behavior with hopeless grandeur, grade their marks and shift my assessment. All the while they just thought they were eating breakfast.

Why am I so afraid to ask for what I want? Because what the world wants might be something different? Will that not always be the case?

So much hangs in the purgatory of unsaids and undones. I am a pendulum imbalanced swinging with infinity. So many questions seek answers but life is resilient and prompts nothing but more questions.

Am I wrong to need a plan? Am I needy to need anything at all? Do I not have enough right here where my feet make a home in the ground and my heart announces its influence with every modulated beat?

I walk among the living. Together we march through damp winter streets under flashing lights and intermittent rain. Together we hum with the moonlight and dance with the sun.

What I think I know I challenge with every breath. I look for signs in the design of artwork and the pattern of wistful clouds. Codes that portray a world less imposing. Signals. Signals I seek.

Nothing I find. Nothing among nothing sitting nowhere. No one. No one at all but silhouettes of dust.

Truth seekers and liars play cards at a chess table in the park.

The wisest of them all chimes in, “Did you ever consider that you already belong? You belong because you are already here. Here you already are. You need not prove your worth any longer.”

The youngest of them all inquires, “But, Sir Victor, how can I possibly know? It’s the validation I seek. It’s the resolute. If you won’t tell me, how can I really know for sure?”

The wise man leans in, led by clenched fists and welcoming blind eyes, “You will never know. Not until you stop asking.”

Ace. King. 21. Blackjack. The house always wins.