Raw Change

Moving away from everything you once thought you could never live without changes you from the neck up. I never stopped to think what drastically changes somebody. Is it just time passed and a compilation of experiences that changes somebody? Is change always a forward, progressive movement inside oneself? Is change something that slowly travels up the spine of your back using each notch like the step on a ladder? Or can change start when the sun is high in the sky, burning your eyes, and igniting your being from the outside in, and then finish when the moon light replaces the suns rays? Does it happen along with the cycle of the moon? Or does it happen as quick as that cheap punch you threw at me when we were fighting over the remote? I guess there is no answer. Change isn’t something that wakes you up at 3AM and won’t let you fall back asleep, but it might be something that keeps you up on a Tuesday night, when your eyes are red and tired and your brain has been running for hours in the wrong direction. That’s usually when I find myself laughing at my naked face in the mirror, after my phone let out its final desperate buzz for the night. After I turn off the shitty song that was filling my empty brain. When I’m alone. It feels as if I’m exhaling a comforting sigh of relief. I revisit this all too familiar feeling of comfort night after night, and it strings me along again, and again. Being alone has never been something I’m good at, I was born too codependent for that, but here I am, alone, laughing at my naked face in the dead of night. Pulling on my skin, and rubbing my cheeks with the back of my hand. Studying my imperfections- as if I didn’t know they were already there. It’s silly- the amusement I’m finding in poking and prodding at the imperfections I previously developed such a hate for. Now, they are oddly comforting. Maybe this is change. Here I am, thousands of miles away from everything my life just last month revolved around, finding comfort in the things I had always hated. Did the moon finish the last phase of its cycle? Did I change along with its phases? Was the change a smooth progression, like the sound of John Bottoms drumming in No quarter? Or did it happen in a sloppy ecstatic rush, more like fast and choppy drums in a punk song? The lines are too blurred to tell, but it happened- change, somewhere along the lines, happened. I’ll credit the move. I’ll credit this new State that I reluctantly call home. Maybe I should thank California for keeping whatever piece of me I left behind. I probably lost it on the strand of beach that watched me grow up. I guess change just happens accidentally, when your eyes are open and you’re not paying attention. It happens when something is lost or gained, and it happens as fast, or as slow, as you let it. I guess change can shatter you like the mug you threw at me when I told you I was leaving, and change can happen while putting those broken pieces back together. Maybe it’s what you feel deep inside when you realize the ugly, broken pieces you need to fix the fucking mess you made fell through the cracks. It’s a product of that god awful feeling that chokes you from the inside and instantly forces you stop to think. Forces you to stop in front of the mirror and stare at your reflection, and just laugh. Laugh at your stupidity, your flaws, and all your mistakes-and that’s where I found change, from the neck up, in front of my mirror.