Certainty

Strange days. The cigarette-butt-end of Summer. I walk from the silk and barbed-wire web I have woven for myself. Away from an unexpected jarring. The day's heat still shimmers up from the bitumen. Comes up through the soles of my feet into ankles, calves, thighs, hips, torso, chest, self. Tread a well-worn path, to a place I've not been in some time.
Smoke spirals, as dustmotes, on slanting shafts of light. Skip and hop and scamper over rocks like they lead somewhere I have to go. Insects click-crack-hum on the breeze. Sometimes I think they're saying something of monumental importance, but I guess it hardly matters if I can't understand them. So I sit and breathe and make my own meaning. Fumble in the dark and try to interpret some sanity from what I perceive. This is my truth.
I think she thinks I'm going crazy. Breaking up bit by bit, like all the wires and strings and shoelaces holding me together are slowly wearing through. I hold her at arms length and fail to tell the truth. Her doubt hurts a little more than I like. I guess I put more store in her opinions than I thought?
Gigantic pink hibiscus witness everything. They bloom lush petals and blood-and-guts stamens over the fence as I watch them from my windowsill. In the balmy afternoon, I close my eyes and imagine the sea. Ebbing, pulsing thing. I think I need to be there.