racing

I offer a few excuses. One, I'm neurotic. Two, I'm a perfectionist. Three, I'm an introvert. They seem to serve me well. Or rather, they seem to accomplish the job. The job? The job of avoiding people, intimacy, responsibility. The job of putting off life until I'm prepared to meet it with a fresh-pressed shirt and tied laces. I won't allow the possibility that I may trip. So let me just sit until I'm ready to begin. I'm at the starting line, biding my time until the gunshot.

But no one's going to pull the trigger for me. Or maybe they already have, I just didn't hear it? Who wouldn't hear a gun fire? Only a liar. Only a saint who lays around and waits for a wild card. Only someone with imperfect grammar waiting for an editor. Well, what if I realized I've been the editor all along? I can cut and revise and revive at my choosing. I can take this manuscript and rip it into confetti to throw at my own party. But where are the guests? I must have forgotten to send out invitations.

Let me stay in. Let me rent out a space in my head where I can sit down and let go of wherever, whomever, whatever I'm grasping. Let me surround my vanity with pillows until it suffocates and lets in other voices. Let me let you in.

And it's only a sin if there is a sinner. And there's only an end if there is a beginner. On your marks, get set...