The Pulse

The Pulse

     The perpetual pulse of the world; there is no beginning or end. It is absolute in a world of chaos and uncertainty. It elicits feelings of frustration and fear, disappointment and despondence. It is wholly faithful among the bottomless sea of unfaithful.
     The pace –
     I saunter and sprint to keep even just a fingertip on it, for it is always barely beyond my reach, my grasp.
     It is selfish and self-serving, never giving a second thought for the victims lying in its catastrophic wake.
     I saunter and sprint to keep even a finger on it, just a fingertip even, for it is always just beyond my reach, my grasp.
     It is selfish and self-serving, never caring for the dazed, creeping victims lying in its wake.
     It taunts me, points and laughs like a freckled-face bully on a play ground, for it knows I have no choice but to surrender. Oh, but doesn’t the pace know that in that very surrender is when I lose myself and the essence of who I am and what I’ve worked for?
     And it knows. And laughs lightheartedly.
     I desperately scan and scour the landscape, searching for strongholds to save me – even my very being. But the pulse is perfect and never erratic. I must not stand still, lest that torrential tide encroach around me and sweep me away to nowhere and nothing.
     Sometimes it retreats, the pulse. But it never ceases. I gain a false sense of achievement in the retreat, and it feels good and complete and right, just for the pulse to return with an unknown and renewed vengeance.
     It’s cyclical, and I know it on a fundamental level. I can’t help but become captivated in the fantasy and fairytale-like sweetness and child-like innocence that inevitably comes before the looming grey-black storm. Sometimes I can even see it, so far out there, faintly dancing along the horizon of earth and sky. Something inside me begins to churn, and even though the warning, blaring foghorn of alarm starts to subtly sound, a part of me chooses to remain oblivious.
     The pulse insists on being heard.
     The pulse will win.
     It has to.