You seem to be following me,
and I am also following you.
We look at each other,
sometimes through each other,
and sometimes we cannot see each other at all.
It’s a game of hide and seek,
in which we have forgotten we have hidden.
The game has become an onion skin layer
over life
translucent but not transparent.
The strong flavor
has become so normalized,
it seems to taste like nothing at all, anymore.
We step toward, and away, toward and away.
Like a cemetery waltz,
resting our distracting drinks on our headstones.
The epitaphs read:
“If only I’d stepped further in rather than out,
I wouldn’t have fallen into that 6-foot hole”.
It’s okay that no one is leading,
the dance has a life of its own.
And life has a dance of its own.
It seems we are both afraid of stepping in at the same time
because perhaps we’ll collide into a mess.
Eyeballs and ponytails strewn about.
But perhaps also, we’ll inhale the exhale of the other.
The foreign scent of your world
can find me curious
or maybe repulsed.
It all depends on which direction I step.
I wonder sometimes
if I have died long ago
and it is only my ghost who is still dancing
only with an idea
and no one else is really there.
Maybe there is one headstone
that reads “Imagine another headstone next to this one”.
It is only visible
upon a slight tilt of the head and a squint of the eyes.
I fell for it, a cheap camera trick.
Maybe it’s not even a headstone,
but a monument to life
etched with the fervent flow of my exhale.
Polishing the only thing that can ever be written there.
Because now:
I don’t get to decide what’s real anymore.
The dance decides all on its own.
Lead Storyweaver
Joshua Edjida is a multidimensional artist, experience designer, author, public speaker/comedian, and transformational leadership facilitator. Originally from California, he currently lives in Colorado, and also enjoys traveling in Thailand, Bali, or in Europe.
