Can you look over the big pond on your high horse?

Oh, you’re still up?

Well, thanks for asking. I have actually been thinking about this.

Oh, you mean, in the metaphysical sense? Well, you have come to the right place.

You see, since I first gained consciousness, I have floated on this cloud. Many don’t know but the clouds follow a rhythm.

That doesn’t make sense? Okay, let me put it differently. So imagine you’re on a raft and you are floating down this river. You see landscapes passing by, sometimes your river is moving fast, sometimes slower. You get stuck, maybe even for a longer time. You make friends on the river banks while you wait until the river drags you along again. You see the most beautiful person you ever saw – high up there, on a rock. But the river goes on. You find love elsewhere. Somewhere you are stuck again. You take your love on the raft. The water gets shaky and your love falls off. Such is living on a raft.

You bump into other rafts. Some have golden ones, some are just sitting on a log. The ones on the log have an advantage to the ones on big, stable constructions – they know how to get back up when they have fallen in. The river continues and you can’t even remember who built this raft. If you think about it, you have never thought about the raft. What’s it even made of? All this time on it and you don’t even know what it is that is saving your life from drowning, making you move down this river with ease.

So you look around, try to find clues. Perhaps I was born on this raft? But where’s my family? I saw them depart on their own ones, a long time ago.

You fall into madness.

The raft is becoming your obsession. Intricate details pop up. You see scars on yourself, places you have missed before. Cracks in the wood from earlier encounters with rocky waters. The place your love sat. You are lost in thought over your raft.

Do I even deserve one?

Amid your efforts to make sense of it all, you don’t even realise – the river has stopped. You have stopped moving. You look forward, the raft moves with your eyes. You look further, the river goes faster. You look towards the riverbank – only to realise it comes closer.

You look onto your raft. Your head is spinning. You feel numb and alleviated at the same time. I mean…

“…. What happens if I look back?”

It is in simple terms that I understand the world. Everything else swindles me.

From faraway lands I am bringing to you new smells and freshness. I might be foreboding a rain, perhaps thunder. The thing that lets your hair stand up and sweat go away.

The byproduct of things occurring, I am dismissed. I am an orchestra that no one would ever dare to conduct. The night is my body, the day my mind. If you close your eyes long enough, you just might understand me.

I bring messages, some faster, some slower. It might be up to me whether I am warming you or making you freeze. I am caressing you, even if you don’t feel like it. Perhaps you can hide but in the end, I will make myself heard.

As loneliness looms over a generation lost in question, I connect. Permeating, I am everywhere and nowhere. I am part of everything that needs me to survive. And no matter how far, perhaps…

“You are breathing the same air as me.”

The bigger I get, the smaller I feel.

I have my own ivory tower made out of assumptions and preconceived notions. It is quite shaky, I must admit. A mild breeze can fling me around my tiny bubble of an office. Up here, it is hard to see. Even harder to navigate. My limbs are so far away from me, it takes days for any nervous signal to reach the muscles. Yet, I feel small inside.

A big construct of flesh and bones, nerves and hair. From afar, I appear as a shiny Fata Morgana, an oasis of sorts. “Look how lush and green!”, you’d say. Others might agree. As you come closer, the water evaporates.

I am not alone, there is thousands of me. Putting fear into people by our distant stance. Looming over others. We won’t come closer. Firstly, because you’d see how small and fragile we actually are. Secondly, because I can’t move my muscles fast enough to actually get out of this position.

I am doomed now, having inflated myself too greatly. I tower above, merely a bystander. I shout out from high above, trying to make sense. Trying to become what I look like I am. A big, prosperous illusion of something.

I hope no one has the guts to come closer.

I am power.

Gotta let off some steam if you’ve been cooking all day.

My cauldron is full of good things. Herbs and spices, thoughts and an extra portion of love for life. Bitterness just to balance it, I am not a fan of sweet indulgences. Simmering away, slowly becoming something that resembles pudding in viscosity. The smell? As an olfactory passionista, I can be enticed by many things. A bit of smoke, a mysterious appeal. Perhaps the smell of incoming rain on a dry heath. Maybe the smell of fog in between the trees in the forest in winter? Moss. Cheese. Beer. Anything pickled. You remember?

I can’t wait for what I have been brewing here. It’s not ready yet. Unfortunately, I won’t know, when the exact point in time will be to unleash this beast of a potion into the wild. Into myself.

I feel its warmth, its depth. I know. I am sure.

But now please let me be. I need to squeeze some thoughts into this juice. You can leave the door open. I’ll come out when the cauldron is full and I am done.