It's that day when nothing matter's, like the hands on a clock at 4 a.m.

The tide pushing you down, down, and down, drifting you go, train tracks headed to the abyss.

Pain is gorgeous and love is torture.

And anyone who tells you different... has never had to try and get their hands around that feeling; that feeling.

Holding on to it.

As that 4 a.m. clock ticks onward--downward, upward, around and around--you move with it.

This is your life and your future and your past and what the hell is it all, really, as you ride that train yet again, looking out the window at those 30 million eyes doing what eyes do at that time of night.

Blinking or winking or smiling. Shut tight, rolled back or blazing full of fire...

And then you blink.

And what was a clear window to the world is now your reflection.

And it is reflecting your eyes.

I can only comprehend half of what my memory stores.

And if I write every bit of every little thing that ever happens... however much I write about this falling sensation is never enough. Never enough.

Let me hold it all.

The feeling of the mud between your toes when you plant the rice.

The feeling of the rain in your hair.

The way your heart smiles at your student's laughter.

The frog he put in his water bottle to take home to mom.

Fighting to remember the beauty of your life, the beauty of every human being who you are lucky enough to meet, the beauty that makes us all unique, the beauty of humanity--fighting, fighting, fighting... fighting against an army.

Solitary I stand, armed with a rock in my hand.

Just me.

We all must die someday.