Formless

I’m pretty sure I was a person when I was born. But now I don’t know what I am.

“You’re a donkey!” says the boss as soon as I get to work on Monday morning. And then I look down as my hands turn into hooves and before I know it I’m walking on all fours, covered in fur, and chasing down that carrot.

“You’re a cow!” shouts the man on the TV screen as soon as I sit down on the couch. And before I know it my feet have morphed yet again, I develop a set of spots, and tubes spiral out from beneath the television to suck the milk out of my udders.

“You’re a clown!” proclaims the woman I met at the bar last week and am now out on a first date with. And I don’t even have time to think before I see my shoes grow enormous, my clothes turn loose and multicolored, and I’m spewing out jokes and dancing like a fool.

Everywhere I go, people tell me I’m something different. Everywhere I go, it’s always “You’re an eagle,” “You’re a monkey,” “You’re a cockroach,” or a million other things. And no matter what they say, no matter what I do, it always turns out they’re right.

I swear I must have been a person, way back sometime. But it’s so fuzzy now. I don’t know if it’s that my mind’s gone through so many changes of form, or what — I mean, you go try switching from a donkey to a cow every day and see if it doesn’t warp your brain!

I must have been a child once. Just a little child like the ones I see hanging from the monkey bars, slipping down the slides, and playing tag out on the grassy fields. The world is still big for them. Life is still big for them. They still look out into the world and see something great and vast to explore.

I won’t deny it: I shed a few tears as I look at them. Tears for what I must have been once, I’m sure of it.

I must have been human once. I just know it.

And what am I now? Away from the world, away from the boss, the TV, the girl I met at the bar last week, away from the enormous delicious unbearable pressure of having someone tell me who I am and what to be? What am I now, as I call out to you with dread and longing, what am I but hot wax calling out for a stamp?

Or water that fills the space containing it. A running stream ever-seeking the lowest point. The great ocean that reaches out in yearning for the circling moon, but for all its longing never touches it.

A human being. I used to be one.

A human being. But that means a creature with legs to choose its own direction.

A human being. But that means a creature with hands to mold its own destiny.

A human being. But that means a creature with an inner voice to tell itself what it is, what it was, and what it will become.

Why is it so hard to give myself a form? Why can’t I just decide on what form I’d like to take and — poof! — become it, without all the struggles, the doubts, and the nights of terror? Why must it always hurt so badly, why must I always walk on the edge of the abyss, and why can’t I just allow myself to fall into it?

Simply to rest. Simply to let it all fall away. Simply to drift off to sleep one night and never, ever have to face the morning again.

Is it that I’m weak, or stupid? Is it that there’s something wrong with me? Is it that there’s some piece of hardware God put into the rest of them when the world was being created, but out of forgetfulness or malice neglected to give me?

How. Please tell me. How could any of this ever be worth it?

And why this terrible yearning to have someone else tell me what form to take — even if it’s a form I despise, even if it’s a form that brings me constant pain, even if it’s a form that makes every breath of this life an unbearable agony?

Why is the one thing I want most of all the one thing that seems most impossible — to get away from myself?

… so I tap the keyboard and let the tiny blips of meaning flow out across the Great Big Empty. Maybe this is just what the world is. Maybe this is just what life is. Maybe this is just what I am.

Maybe there is no way out. Maybe it will always be this way. Maybe there are no answers to the riddles.

But if there is a way out, I’ll find it in this keyboard.

If there’s a way back to playing tag on the grassy fields, I’ll find it in my pen.

If there’s a way to justify how much it always hurts, I’ll find it in these sheets of paper.

But for now: hee-HAW!