I watch the present smear past the windows and away from my view, away from what lies before me, like a motion picture finger painting lied out in the rain.

While I stand guard in my own thoughts inside this public transit bus, making it’s way achingly slow toward my destination, its in those quiet moments, in the moments where my ordinary reality becomes my façade, the mask of the outside world, that I feel the longing, the anxiety, the passion from my mind, body, heart and soul become the thing I exhale from inside me.

I dare to breathe in, building up the fire inside my chest and I feel the need to live.

I glance at my fingers and allow them to indulge in the vibrations, the feel of something so real that could one day be within my grasp, and I allow it to take hold of me.

As I let my eyelids slip down my vision like the dark curtain of a night sky, my mind explodes into a flash of shooting stars and takes domain from me, delving me into my subconscious. And it is there that I reside, within my daydreams, where hope becomes my home.

And though I am a doubting Thomas, my mind relentlessly tortures me with the images of a possible future filled by what I’ve come to understand as the purpose of my existence. Or so I question, even when my soul takes no hesitation to reassure me.

And its behind closed eyes that my blindness to the things that could become a possibility transforms into a clarity so tangible that it leaves a bittersweet taste in my mouth.

I stand upon two legs rooted behind a glass lens, taking in the images of humanity, drinking in its complex beauty as my own. I watch myself absorb the moments, the expressions, as a film becomes more than a recording of time but, a glimpse into a moment lived, becoming one with the past, oh-so naturally.

Then, my thoughts warp me to the stillness of an empty room, paradoxically filled. But before me I see floating screens awaiting the vision of my own creation. Perfectly placed are isles of countless knobs, like a technological sea, within the control of my very fingertips. And it was then that I knew I could control the waves of sound that crashed into my ears, where my soul would be fed from and my body could agree in satisfaction. It was more than just unintelligible sounds, but a melody strung together by my very soul’s hand, only to be worn proudly by those that allowed it to instill itself upon them.

Oh, how the need to adorn mankind in the notes of my own soul was so strong, it felt like the hardening of liquid sweetness crusting at the edges of me.

Once more, my mind placed me where my heart desired, upon a stage in front of my race, my own kind. Endless was the masses. The beauty and bizarre existence that was the people, moving like one entity, yet all at once so separate and singular. The strobing lights lit all around me, as if I was caught in the middle of a dancing tornado of celestial bodies; The center of the Universe. And like a shock of lighting, I heard it. Like wedding bells, a sense of love so strong came rushing down on me as I came to realize that my music was being played for the people that so happily stood before me. It was the coming together, the honor of an idea becoming a living experience. It was a qualia.

And as if a subconscious alarm hidden within my genetic code had rung, call it intuition, my eyes snapped wide, allowing me to make sense of my location. Like a calling, I yanked tightly on the cord that hung above my head. Once the bus ever-so cautiously came to a stop, I stepped out and was overcome with faith. 

Because what lied before me was my college, my education, my chance of a possibility of a reality that would forever be lost from the confines of a daydream in which I would escape to. It would be a daydream come true.