Sub and Supra

Getting over or staying under

Between hooks and teeth, in my side or through my neck, there are a few things I’ll allow to take hold of me, cornering me in my own Stockholm-ian enclave, deep in the desert. There is relish, fervor, in the bite that digs deep, something near-overwhelming but never past the edge, not diving off the cliff.

It seems so many companies & career-makers seek to emulate this ideal: soak long and stick close, together we shall reshape the origin of your inspiration and your primary forms of expression. Quickly, surprisingly, acts are about impression, emails find me in the soft light of my bathroom at 2am, half-blind but willing, to comprehend and reply in one-line, to say “it’ll be worth it in a few more years,” it’ll be worth it as to say this phase will be over, the fox and the hound, greyhound and the agile rabbit, the ~chase~ will come to a close as the dollars flood the engine, deep beneath an emerald-green wave.

Life feels terribly shy of house parties for me in the last few years; I miss the intoxication of close friends and fresh acquaintances clogging up hallways like arteries, a clot waiting to be burst at the drop of fresh notes of music, of Wilhelmian screams for shots. I’d be smart to get over the droll of the week-day, sip deep from the long weekend draught, reminding myself that I only live once, thinking I may only really live for the weekend, feeling like when the chips are down, 2/7 odds can’t be that bad.

I am still getting over, still a tad bit under, a spring/summer of discontent within my work-life. This being a metaphor sprung right from the tattoo of Atlas I received even earlier; can I relearn the lesson of this sub-skin image in ink? I say yes, when I’m confident, but I still slide back into no, still find this corner of my world has pinned me eternal. Atlas has nothing to shrug at, the responsiblity being consistency, dutiful evenness, such that anyone who feels a muscle quiver is living near a fault line in California, not experiencing an emotional-world-end but a test of strength that is always passed. I can remind myself: it is my duty to experience life, seeing that the muscle grows even as the vessel cracks.