The Pulse of Being

I’ll tell you how it starts.
It starts with a chorus.
A chorus that burrows, curls inside your skull,
hummed four times in the secrecy of your mind
a guilty pleasure, an almost stolen joy.
Your toes tap the rhythm quietly against the floor.
The fifth time, you dare to sing it aloud,

And it feels like inhaling for the first time,
air and light come crushing into you.
Your lungs feel like they are holding morning dew,
and the heart taps onto a softer pulse.
As if someone finally cracked a window
in a room you didn’t know was sealed.

And the world makes sense, just once.
The winter air wraps you in a strange warmth,
sunlight spills gold over everything,
The next song comes on, brighter, sweeter,
and you laugh,
just to hear yourself laugh.
Then laugh harder because it sounds like ecstasy.

You dance. Slow. Fast. Reckless.
The whole earth is swaying with you.
The air is crisp. The music is pure.
Everything is beautiful.
The trees, the pavement, the strangers
"No one is cruel," you exclaim.
You want to press your palms to the ground.
Grab hold of a single ray of sunshine,
You want to kiss the wind.
This is it—this is what being alive means.

Then, the tenth song. The air sags.
The lyrics start to mean things.
Your eyes grow slow, your joints unspool.
You’ve been sitting too long.

And then—the thought:
None of this matters, does it?
There’s so much pain. Everywhere.
In the man on the sidewalk. In your father’s voice.
In you. Always in you.

Your teeth grind like stones.
Your guts coil, a nest of snakes.
Your shoulders slump, but your eyelids—
Oh, your eyelids are lead.
So heavy you can't keep your eyes open.