little sarah Big World

~OR~

“I Am That”

~OR~

“I Am That Which Repeleth”

On the train, I sit one seat over from an old man, though I suspect he will likely have that Japanese death-breath that’s become so inescapably familiar as I commute across the island via a series of confined spaces. All sallow skin loosely arranged around a skeletal stance, this one, and I purposefully choose to sit nearer.

I’m trying to expand my sense of self, while simultaneously dismantling my ego. Trying not to see others as separate and different from myself, something foreign. Entertaining the idea that we could be infinite reflections of the same connected consciousness, variations on a theme. So that “other” is not removed from me. It is me. And I am that.

This requires some constant effort, necessitates that I stop thinking of myself as special and unique. Digging deep, quelling that secret, safe, sinister voice that assures me I’m different, better than others somehow.

That’s a hard, bitter pill to swallow, Friends. And admitting it here is frightening. I feel bare and vulnerable, like a dream where I’m naked and/or shitting in public.

I believe in telling the truth. For all my fiction and fantasy, my sweet secrecy, my protective shell. I think I’m ready to shed them, to grow a new skin.

Ready to open my heart. Not a flower gracefully blooming, but an elevator door, pried apart between floors, all crowbars and elbow grease. To try and save the precious life inside.

So I sit down next to death-breath and mentally pat myself on the back. Good job, little sarah.

I haven’t even cracked my journal, clasped triumphantly in hand, ready to record this proud little milestone, when the man rises and lurks away from me. To the seats reserved for the elderly and disabled, though there are many open spots on this train.

Two stops later he gets off.