Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Synapses

The wind is weaving its way around my dark legs, through my shirt. I plunge down, down, releasing the breaks as the wheels roar fast beneath me. I come to the dirt trail, facing off to a bunny, I meet the lumpy incline. My muscles feel stronger from hiking Angels’ Landing; this gauged by lack of sensation in my calves as I pump. I pump to release my skin from the helpless youth who smack their educators with rude words and apathy. I pump as a form of prayer for the women and men who yearn to climb out of ‘high-risk’ zones with a courageous grip on pencil and book. I pump to forge a connection with my beating mind—my enraged heart. I think of the political commentators who binge news watchers with high drama, the teenagers who cannot communicate with authority except by saying “Huh,” an entire generation only capable of expressing their words in uncommitted text, and the fading paint on Walnut Canyon. I wonder why America’s top priority is safety and what exactly the point of fear is, how I can envision a car swerving, then crash, splattering my brains across the pavement and what the Tribute subhead would say, how the little children would feel about the bicycling substitute teacher who was unfairly sent to heaven. That Edward Norton’s character in ‘Fight Club’ had something going when he found salvation from the corporate cow as his face was socked in, making his blood run clean. Sleeping pills, allergy pills, anti-depressant pills, happy pills, ecstasy, acid, marijuana, alcohol and the strength it takes to lead life pure as a blessing. Nature: its power of transcendence, feeding glory into the moment. As I pump, pump, forgetting that I pump, my soul screams to be free of media conformity, cries for others to hear themselves spewing nothing but caged slang and phrases, never uttering a word of compassion for thoughts or even each other. I want to say to the iconic rap stars that their voice is all some of these kids actually hear, Do you understand the implications of your phattist priorities? slobbered upon all of cyber, print and brain space? Am I making the right decisions, is there such a thing? Am I bound for convention, is it even escapable? If I were you, where would my synapses take me? On the road home, why do I name my mind my cursed enemy?

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