Perfect Play
I learned how to headstand recently. After a few tries I managed to keep myself up for some time, laughing gaily and feeling blood flow through my body in this new way, in this special way. Something about play for it's own sake, it's own circular end (and so without end); I could grow old and infirm and die spending more and more time in a day standing upside-down.
And not to encroach on the realm of the child, but: there is a certain symbolism to be dredged up here. I wiggle and writhe and struggle to crash myself through the envelope of Terra Firma. I am a beautifully ugly dying bullet trying to burrow my way into a giant's skull. I become simultaneously a sperm too late. With the egg already impregnated I can only but wiggle ineffectually at the cusp of purpose and slowly wilt, wither, die.
I think, though, that if I am any of these things in some sort of substantial, meaningful way, then I am the eternal child. I wear that dopey smirk of a mask because it is my face, and I smile because I smile because I smile. And one day I will stand on my head for the last time, and be long gone before my body finally accomplishes the impossible.
And not to encroach on the realm of the child, but: there is a certain symbolism to be dredged up here. I wiggle and writhe and struggle to crash myself through the envelope of Terra Firma. I am a beautifully ugly dying bullet trying to burrow my way into a giant's skull. I become simultaneously a sperm too late. With the egg already impregnated I can only but wiggle ineffectually at the cusp of purpose and slowly wilt, wither, die.
I think, though, that if I am any of these things in some sort of substantial, meaningful way, then I am the eternal child. I wear that dopey smirk of a mask because it is my face, and I smile because I smile because I smile. And one day I will stand on my head for the last time, and be long gone before my body finally accomplishes the impossible.