Friday, Pre-Dawn: An Old Sentiment, Again.

James Bowden

I wake up early in the morning to
work and a feeling of desolation
overtakes me. Like I’ve spent too
many hours existing lately, like I
know I will continue to have to for
a whole day more: to-day. I know
my state of mind is mercurial at best;
even in homeostasis, I find ways
to discontent myself. Mostly, I’m afraid
of feedback loops and so I frant-
                ically break!
each one I can identify. Though at
this hour, mostly I don’t want to feel
so alone.

---

Here, I remember a dark morning on my balcony, Fleming, junior year, reading a poem from my Mary Oliver collection, Devotions, over the orange tree, feeling everything beautiful. And the picture of it I took. I loved those times, and I do still now.

There are some pessimistic (I think) lines I read somewhere saying that we live for the first 20-something years of our lives, and then simply begin to live the past, or with respect to it, so strongly and conditionally that it flavors everything. I wonder if this is true. I worry that this may be true. I am sure it is not. I will make sure it is not fully the case. I am alive and breathing, here, now.