Rest (Eschaton)

2 a.m. stopping to fill up the tank on the way back from a late night show. As I exited my car, I noticed something. Something familiar, but I couldn't quite place it. For I had not been acquainted with it for quite some time.

After a few deep breaths, the frost kissing my face as I exhale. I remembered her name. “Silence”. A friend I had not visited in quite some time. She had this weird way of reminding me how alone I was. Maybe it was the fact that she gave my mind more freedom to imagine a voice, speaking to me.

But it had been so long I had forgot what that voice sounded like. The voice that promises me everything is gonna be alright.

Silence allowed my mind to think and for some reason the good times were a quick montage that came and went. And then those staining memories came, those days when I had dreamed of standing on that stool. Rope around my neck, ready to give Hell a chance.

I realized I then had no fear of pain. Only fear of not feeling pain again. Because without this pain... Who would I be?

The fear of standing on the stool was knowing there were two options. I could cut the rope and walk away, or kick the stool and fade away. Either way, nothing was ever gonna be the same. Perceptions would completely change and life would not be the same that I knew before “the rope days”.

Now after months of therapy and encouraging words from friends and family, there was a conclusion that life tried to show me. When I stepped on that stool, I was a boy. But when I stepped back off, I was a man.

But the truth was, when I stepped on that stool I was a boy. But I never did find the strength to step off again.

Life is still a sequence of last minute decisions. Deciding whether or not to go for it because the blood in the veins of my legs was beginning to slow down. My knees locked, and mind focused on nothing more than the sweat forming around my neck. That itch, that sting from the rope. Reminded me of that crown of thorns.

The one I was supposed to wear, as rocks and whips tore my flesh and tore me to shreds. I remembered those nails that were supposed to be driven into my hands, but I can feel the flesh there and there are no scars. No pain, just my hands in tact.

That stool was nothing more than the gas station drive way. A seat on the recliner in the living room. Driving down a long freeway or waiting for the shower to go warm in the bathroom. These moments are all the same. Times in life that I deserved so much more pain. But it was taken away. Oh God, it was taken away.

And as the world tries to throw so much stress my way. Heaven is where I lay, and I finally found that rest.