We all have our ways to cope…or rather, pretend to cope.

Driving too fast—nowhere to go, but must go quickly.

Drinking to oblivion—wafted, pacified; one-way ticket to the Promised Land.

Ruminating, lost in the darkness. Heated. Attached. Seeking any way out from the unremitting.

Cope. That’s what we do.

Tell the world all is well. Smile to save our sanity. Bless ourselves with the prayer of eternal busyness.

That’s how we cope…or really don’t…gestures seeking the same result: A chance to run from pain.

We consume, we deprive, we bellow and bore—until it all becomes too much. Forced then to take inventory; finding we have never left our soaked corner of the room.

Broken pieces in need of peace.

Do Not Cope. Do not lay salve on the blistering lesions. Give them air, eyes, a voice. Examine the unexamined. Observe the unobservable. Breathe in the unbreathable.

You will not die by sitting still. You will die by trying to cope.

Sit. Sit longer than you can ever imagine, until the one voice amid the thousands, hugs you deeply and never lets go. That voice—the “I got you, kid”—is all you ever need.

 

 

 

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Apprentice Editor: Kimby Maxson/Editor: Travis May

Photo: Flickr