rhythmic reverie

I just know that it wasn’t always this way — living in a white noise world of man-made machines with dead eyes.

I don’t like to think about the things I miss from my past, because I know they’re no longer a part of my present for a reason. But I’ve been reminiscing childhood — innocence — when we marveled in tree-climbing, bike-riding, skating days. Not a worry in the world but scraped knees and broken bones and mysterious bruises. They made us human; it was easier to feel human then. To enjoy the rhythm of the earth, look up at the clouds, then at each other, and share what we see, what we feel, what we yearn for. To run and fall and cry and laugh and get bored, and do it all over again. We lived by the motto, “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me,” because feelings weren’t hurt as much then, at least not for long. We were much more keen of sharing what’s on our minds with little to no fear of judgement or embarrassment. We were comfortable with exposing our hearts, through letters and songs and mere speech. We knew that it was worth it to rip off the bandaid versus keeping the wound exposed and letting it worsen over time until it’s only semi-healed, and forever scarred. It’s become hard to say something while looking directly into someone else’s eyes, when that’s all we use to do. We truly looked at one another, messy and broken, and it was nice, it was pure, it made things easier in the moment even if not in the long run. We don’t look at the world around us as much anymore, and we don’t take the time to look at each other. We look past it all, or we see everyone and everything through screens. We speak to each other electronically more than we do face to face. The word “like” is registered in the dictionary as “to electronically register one’s approval of (something, such as an online post or comment) for others to see.” It’s disheartening and terrifying all at once. We’re becoming the robots to the machines that have consumed us; we’re forgetting how human we actually are. We photoshop our scraped knees and bruised legs and blemished faces. We’re losing track of how to be human again, how to be raw with ourselves and one another. We leave each other in the dark because we’d rather let something die on its own than take one minute to be direct. We’re drowning in the white noise of the world’s approval, that we’ve forgotten how to sit and enjoy silence. We’re forgetting that it’s OK to trace our fingers over our wounds, and it’s OK to tell one another when we have a wounded heart or chaotic mind. I just want to look at each other again, in the eyes, through each other’s hearts, into each other’s minds, messy and living.