shift delete

I dig through my old notebooks, i sneeze. I run down to get some fresh air, or a fresh perspective. I rummage through the drawers trying to find some medical bills. I dispatch a new bundle to the laundry. I dream of blue seas and white washed homes. I read. Nothing gets through though. It is like a strange sort of vacuum that separates my skin from the nerves that carry the sensory signals to my brain. I can't feel a thing. I do not know if i live. I try to do all the right things - smile, enjoy a meal, a brisk walk and the flowers. Again, that feeling of watching my life unfold from a distance. I have walked these paths before. It has been a while. Am not sure how the map pans out from here on. A bend ahead, i know not what lies beyond. Or maybe i do. That ought to explain why I'm taking my time getting there. Utopia. The whiff of lunacy. Oh no no, it's just the sea breeze. Maybe that should tell you you're here. Truly here. Breathing in this moment, basking in the sun's light... Reaching out to people I knew helps lesser and lesser each day, the gap is widening. They know the person that used to be me. I don't know that person anymore. I look back and critique her naivete, her optimism, her desire to find herself. It has been a long journey, some things learnt, some forgotten. Identity. The loss of one, the embracing of another. Snake skin, shed today, a new one now - shiny, temporary. Pebbles, stored away. Memories, blotted away... Trying so hard to forget, I haven't had the sense to pick and choose the fate of them. The good have fled with the ugly, maybe that is why i feel empty. Who am i? I ask again, and again. What do I want? I never felt so detached, from my own life. Always cared about who i was, how i was, what i thought. It's all gone. In one single swoosh! A vague recall, of smiling eyes.