Pieces

Much swirls again in my head today. Before I took my new job, I was merely depressed. Now? Oh, now I do not know what I am because it changes with every tick of the clock. Wild swings and wild orbits—and I hold on by my fingertips alone as I am slung through the void between the stars. What am I now? I must be more specific: what am I on Monday—is this what I mean? Or on Tuesday morning? Or Wednesday afternoon? I must pose this question carefully if the answer is to be anything more insightful than “unstable. You are presently a mess.”

Pieces of me fall off. I stoop to pick them up, but as I gather them, more fall. I gather them too, only to find that, as I finish and prepare to stand, a single piece has slipped through my fingers. I bend down to retrieve it, but this only causes more to tumble from my hands. I pick them up too, but now the process of retrieving and restacking has gone on too long: a new piece of me falls to the floor like an ill-timed afterthought, and I must begin again. I am on my knees raking my fingers over the floor to uncover any pieces of myself I missed when someone walks in, maybe a coworker or even a friend. I freeze. One more piece, one that was already dangling from my brow, seizes that moment to break free. It lands on the floor, one miserable inch from the pile in my cupped hands. I am forced to stand then, to claim whatever I hold and count the rest as lost. I race past the other person, but I am too startled to offer any apology. I bring my hands to my chest, but I can feel pieces slipping through my fingers as I run.

What will I even do with them, these dislodged fragments of myself? I cannot say, but holding them feels better than not.