I started out with a quiet dream of flying, sailing the winds as the sun warmed me to my conflagrant core. Coursing through these precipitous clouds, feeling the damp dew drift along the edges of my face; outlining the fractal details in an iridescent display of colour. Alone amid the barrier between space and earth, not beholden to one or the other.
I wasn’t a horse in the running. I could slip by unnoticed; no mention of my name. My thoughts weren’t overladen with process or prospects. I could write freely in a flow that formed effortlessly on the blank canvas of my mind. Before it was blotted, torn, and smeared by these dyspeptic years.
Even then the red brick loomed over me but it wasn’t a wall to fight against. It was a place to rest beneath. A friend to block out the harsh sun; a shadow to give respite not an enemy out of spite.
Now my mind is too full while my soul feels the earth’s pull. I stare up at the sky, closing my eyes, and all I can do now is try and remember what it was like to fly. The bright iridescent colours have dulled to gray as my thoughts begin to fray. I used to pretend that all the world was a stage. Now I am locked hopelessly away in knowledge’s cage.