A Billion Burning Dreams

Cognitive Dissonance I traveled six hours Upstate to find a lackluster escape from the rhythmic monotony of my daily delineation. I had strayed quite far from my journey attempting to create a new path, as if running away would vindicate me of the certainty that I was lost. The hills came like birthdays: One after the other. Coquettish weather of snowfall, sunshine, snowfall. Sunshower flurries of woebegone adventure convincing me that I could see the forest for the trees. My place in this vast ecosystem has become so independent, so far removed from symbiosis, that any semblance of courtship has been collapsed into that catch-all phrase: “Networking.” My life is an in-joke whose punchline has consistently been missed, almost as much as my lips wonder where all the others have gone.

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