Labor Day Tiredness

I had 16 years old the first time I saw a man without eyebrows. Bob Geldof was standing in the TV in front of me. The Wall, wasn’t quite an appropriate movie for childish teenagers who pretended to know about the world beyond the nearest bar at which they spent every single weekend playing to be adults. There was no way I could understand what the agonizing man in the screen was trying to tell me.

His silhouette tormented my dreams for more than a few nights. It wasn’t fear; was the first time I experienced admiration. I wanted to understand the asthmatic gentleman with the white shirt. An inexpressive face that made me want to write poems in the middle of the night about an unknown perspective of the world I was living in. Eventually, the feeling faded away and was overcome by acne and hormonal issues; Salicylic acid, pills for cramps and a College Degree fixed it.

Seven years went by, and one Mexican Holiday evening was enough to decipher the secret of that new born dictator. Rain was an absent friend for almost six months, but that morning was quite refreshing, it’s a colossal irony the fact that we celebrate Labor Day procrastinating in underwear, taking nap after nap until our legs go numb. The dishes had piled in the sink and my joints were indisposed at the moment; I took the sponge, firmly with my right hand and immersed it in the dirty, old, forgotten dish soap. Why did everything become so difficult, meaningless? Even cleaning a sponge was demanding. Right in front of me there was a small tea cup filled with condensed milk, inside of it was an agonizing fly; sinking in its own destiny. I kept staring at the cup until the fly sank.

That was the time when I finally understood the meaning of have become Comfortably Numb, to die in our own mental pool, in the sweetness of the possibility of not being hurt, not once, not ever, sinking in an ephemeral reality, slowly and almost romantically. Now, I’m twenty three years old and I have just comprehend that we are all Bob Geldof, Pink the Rocker, the new born dictator or a sinking little fly in condensed milk. I took more than I thought; to learn that travel to other district, city or country would not get you apart from the stupidity monster. Give yourself a standing ovation or clap to your shadow until your hands get sored would not be enough to be a wise man. A thousand praises to your reflection would not make you understand why every morning you keep asking yourself: What am I doing still here?