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28.2%ANMag Issue 21 Personal Maintenance
The Box
By Saad Manasterli, Staff Writer
Fairfax, Virginia – As I sit here in my sized-up cube of an ancient method of isolated work, I juggle random ideas occurring about the world in the same manner that I have tried to do before – out of the box. I dance among the restless thoughts that lay in my head. I twist, and I turn; I fall and burn, but I never learn. Where is that aforementioned box? Why is it that I and we are all afraid of being inside of, or near, it? What is the make and model? Who is the keeper of this box? Are we all keepers of the box? Aren’t we all technically our brothers’ keeper; sorry ladies, let me clear my throat… Aren’t we all our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers after all? So this box that we keep hung around our necks… Is it the same model of ages ago, or has it had the automatically updated patches for our operating systems, and will it be the same model for years to come?
Personally, I think that the box is where we put all of our hopes, fears, what-ifs, desires, unanswered questions, the objects of our denial, unfound loves, unclaimed lovers, and untamed others. But the question still remains the same; you and I both know that there is no escaping the box; you can always hide or put these unnamed objects in it, but you must remember that the box is not bottomless.
You reap what you sow; that is what they say. You get what you put in it, and that is still the same to this day, except the time ridden and forbidden facing of the truths we keep ultra-hidden. Three years ago, it came to a culmination. It seems that the fields were ready for the picking, and we were the hired help. It was time to sow the oats of our negligence and naivety. The world that is us watched in amazement at our “shock and awe” as we stumble through life clueless to the reality that was and is to come. The crop had a cost and a hidden value to which end we have yet to surmise. Free the heavy burden and your shoulders will rise again and with it your anchor, your mind.
You are free to move along with the rest of your faculties liberated.
The box will never extinct because we have become accustomed to feeding it our soul and becoming empty shells of our former selves; hence, it then becomes our master. We make the box the keepers of us, and we are hung around the neck of this box of our fears; it has the leverage required for us to submerge our heads and live shameful of who we are and what we are and all that we as individuals are really all about. The leverage that the box has over us is so powerful that it forces us to our knees the moment that we realize what we have been doing for ages and ages and ages, and collapsing and reawaking only to realize that we go back to the box like fly are attracted to light and always seem to find their demise. Is it too late to recover from this demonic beast?
The burden is heavy for those who wish to carry it. And yet, the bystander who “knows” just how things should be lends no helping hand! The world seems so clear to them with their absolutes and solutions that take out every human element; yet, they call themselves “participants,” but participants of what, might I ask?
I have been laying my eggs in this box for years, and now at the age of twenty-seven − wait I lied − twenty-eight, I wonder what I have in there, what I have stored away for all of these years, and do I actually want to find out? It becomes a kidnapping, and we are the kidnapped, and with time as a catalyst, we in turn begin to suffer.
I find that the truth is always just under the surface, always waiting for that scratch. I find that the world is imploding on its own emotional plane. I speak from where I stand, and that at times seems to be quick sand. And I dream of telling that tale which says it all and puts every living creature at ease. I speak with a language made simple. I speak simply, only to imply that not all conversations are as excruciating as they might appear.
I remember once being able to leap to great heights. I used to stretch my arms out and soar into oblivion, into absolution, into the divine, into myself, into you, into nothing. I remember how that empty space between the earth and I used to feel. I am now a Man, and the earth feels rough and jagged. The wind that once lifted me up to the heights now blasts me with particles of civilizations past. Never were we to roam this…
Alone once again
Towards nothing, but my own sin
Virtue is not of itself
Leaving me nothing
But myself
Twisted morals, all shaken up
Stirred and pounded into a cup
A cup that is of me
Just waiting for that special time
That special moment
That I get served as a special drink