Testing Parameters

By Celeste Regal

I will not be defined by the windows
and doors of your discontent
For too long I walked buried under
weighty dirges created elsewhere

Unbind me from this treaty
The terms are too dear

(Spells broke quickly
Depravity cracked a bad egg)

I deliver myself
swimming through fingers
of constriction

Often the walls of circumstance push our nest of endeavors to a precarious edge. Out of such squeezing comes either renewed vigor or giving in to distraction. The question revolves toward ignoring or reframing perception. It is an architectural conundrum of emotional bounds – sacrificing what is thought to what is felt ropes in the outpouring of useful information. Restricting narratives imprison when cutting out space in this detour world.

In these terms, the surface maintains a shelf life. It is a connection of variable human experience. The senses respond to feckless neighbors in real time. Abstractions validate focus, if hurdles do not become obstacles. All this presence, exacerbated by geometrically gyrating population, quiets itself through the Ethernet where units of transmission mystify and locate. When the outside infiltrates the inside, the other dilutes our stance. Outpacing such dilemmas may not be possible. A layer must be found for the soil of effectiveness since dalliance will only trouble the fertile mind.

Silence falls from memory as a new arena spurts from hampered practices, interrupted by too many footnotes. Structures of faulty products are lamented daily. We insulate with fast, practiced essays of despair on social media constructs, leaving a wake of unaddressed theses. Leaky enclosures entice us to respond with solutions, to include public testament, but in the end it becomes difficult to decipher. Are we saying anything of value and is anyone listening? Does chatter matter, or like paint to canvas become a lovely thing to look at from the right angle?

When the sun rests on a live thing to marvel at, we forget all these ponderings. Rejuvenation prevails in the face of bright reality checks – a delightful deception of the space-time continuum. The Three-card Monte tosser laughs in the shadows unnoticed.