Personal Inertia

Those moments that come, a person, a place, a time, here, now, or at some point in the past, perhaps somewhere else. Nothing, no one, really ever stops for anyone. I remind myself to try to move within. The inertia is mine. Inside of me. Myself, anxious, paralyzed inside, while time and the world just rushes on by.

The emptiness and stillness of inertia, is like hands wrapped around my throat. A weight on my chest. Squeezing shut the airways, so that the only air I know is the empty air around me. The stillness is mine. Nothing, no one, really ever stops for anyone. Air that offers nothing, nor contains anything to aid my escape, anything of use.

And it’s not that I’m not breathing, it just feels like I’m not, while everyone around me seems to be drawing in deep expansive breaths. I remind myself to try to breathe, which in itself has become like a trick, a slight of hand illusion. Somehow fooling everyone. Except me. Nothing, no one, really ever stops for anyone.

“Personal Inertia by Bob James is a shining capsule of existential brilliance; this solid, creative effort has provokes an endgame that could reflect one’s pending, personal disaster by pills, gun, or the wheels of a train; a deeply piercing reach reflecting the devastation of our well-being, that yet might shine long after the black clouds have broken apart. . . .”

~ John Gilmore