There's Displacement.

2024.06.14

Good morning, still that great place.

And, hello.

That page is a stage with its friendly friend the world.

Absurd as a bird in Spring with a pill box leopard skinned cap.

We're back doing that thing, that stream of conscious dream that would seem there's better things to do, but eventually the only thing to do is to get through the bilge.

And what of it?

Today, so far is about cleaning up disorder.

Getting the ducks in a row, as it were.

Commas placed, periods erased, wash your face, join the human race.

Or not.

Decisions to be made.

Stands to be stayed.

Remembrances to be placed, and what of it?

There's displacement.

When you place something in a pool of anything and the anything is disrupted, it expands to take on the new substance introduced.

You get into the bathtub.

You let the water run a little longer than usual.

The water splashes over the rim.

The floor will have to be sopped up by your towel after you dry yourself, of course.

But water can wait.

A bathroom floor that can't handle a bit of water is no bathroom floor at all!

And a bath, for you, is a necessity before the world sets in.

Before you launch yourself into that human race and displace the ebbs and flows of all you think you know the day will bring.

You have your checklist of appointments and meetings of tasks to be done so, for the nightly bath (you'll be a little more careful not to overfill the tub), you can call the day a success.

Though, the greatest achievement, most days, is returning to a sense of peace the water feels held around your sore body squeezed to near breaking with its attempts and victories at casting out all the excess water from the container called your life so you can call the checklist a win in calling it done.

Where was the fun? Where was the real success?

Where are those, and what good are those, that see you so successful?

And why, when they arrive to tell you you're glorious and beautiful, all you can think about is getting to that washroom to take that bath to hold you in that water to cleanse you of all the accomplishments done that day?

Are they wins if your true goal is to just wash them away the night after?

What would a day look like when the only goal on your map was to take a bath, follow what felt right, sit alone and stare at the sky, then the horizon, then the way the land plots out it's days by doing nothing at all accept making horizon lines that only want to swim in the sky, displace Heaven so the waves that overflow wispy air can reach your lungs every night to fill you with air like the embrace of spa waters, oasis tributes to empty successes when compared to the feeling of the hot, then warm, then welcoming song to sleep to make the next checklist for the next day?

Perhaps you'll stay in the bath all day tomorrow.

It's not like you haven't won enough checklists in your life to deserve the peace.

But checklists, eventually, shout back in the need for more checklists.

Ugh, you'd like to burn all the agendas down if only there were space on the agenda to do so.

Maybe drop the cell phone in the tub after you stand, wrap the towel around your hair, watch the rectangular slave driver displace your dirty water for a change, let the world go mute in the waste of wires and magnetic pulses set to do nothing but get you back in that bath to pat your wet back that you made it back again and knowing somebody on the drowning screen somewhere thinks your day was worth the spectacle you had to make just to tell yourself it was okay to fall asleep again so you can do another checklist again.

Maybe tomorrow you'll go for a walk and watch the sky after you order another phone from your laptop.

Plenty of screens to scream at in the house.

Plenty of electric loud, to shut down while you never noticed, after the screen goes dark the only thing left on it is the dark mirrored reflection of yourself and whatever ceiling you find yourself under.

The sky is a ceiling.

You'll go take that walk, now.

S.J. Wynn
+he Ghos+