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Trying so hard not to lose my mind, I find myself desperately grasping at brittle bits of straw, crunching into powder in my palm’s sweaty grip. Deep breaths inhale the filthy dust and bursts of hacking coughs and laughter fill the stale evening air. Tight, tight, tight. Always squeezing tight. The tension never seems to bore, nor fade away. Tell me what to do wild, shaky leg. Tell me what to say to me, oily, matted hair. Tell me what I’m supposed to see, drooping bags beneath my eyes.  There’s nothing but me here, but I’m looking for something else, anything else, to grab onto, to cling to, like a happy-go-lucky rafter, so cocksure till he lost his grip, till he slipped off into the rapids and felt the sudden shift, and felt what it means to be adrift, to be without a vessel in unforgiving waters. Slipping through water like crushed bits of straw carried by the wind, but no hands reaching out for me. Just lost, just rough, uncharted waters as far as I can see. Dropping below and popping back above the churning current, there’s a glimpse of a distant scene, of a setting horizon spewing purples and oranges and reds on the whites and blues and greens. But just a glimpse, barely a fragmented reality. Just a brief mirage to trick my sanity, and I’m back to drowning, drifting, slipping on by.