Triumph

In the red straw network there is:

*no hope

*no telling

*no entrance

*no exit

*no talking

*no timeline

*no travelling

*no sharing

*no smoking

*no milk with cereal

Thank you for respecting the rules.  Carry on with your business.

But your legs get a little bit heavier.  And the strings get a little bit longer.  And the knots feel a little bit tighter.  And the joke gets a little bit harder to laugh at.

A harsh beautiful place, this memory horizon.  If you squint your eyes you can see the moon.

There isn’t much I can see anymore. 

I am losing.  You don’t just suddenly stop losing.  You think about why you’re losing, you despair that you are losing, you blame the universe for losing, you write self-pitying poems about losing, you come up with reasons why losing is not really losing, you give yourself pep talks about losing, you brainstorm how to stop losing, you develop five-point plans to halt the losing, you wonder if we are all really losing, you become heavy and tired with losing, you think maybe if I get a haircut I won’t keep losing, and then you find that after all of this you are still losing.  And not only are you still losing, but you are now losing by so much that winning becomes unrealistic, so you start coming up with easier goals, like “accepting,” or “taking small steps” or “adapting.”  But in the end you will just be losing again.