Unfinished

I know my death is inevitable but it some ways it seems as if I might be able to postpone it, indefinitely, if I never complete anything. My life is a cluttered mess of unfinished stories, songs, and one-quarter-of-the-page-left relationships—everything dangling by an unfinished thread. Closure terrifies me.
Even this piece, this short companion piece to my life, I struggle over. Which word might finish this before I’m aware enough to stop it? Which thought will complete the communication, seal the deal with the reader, and end our discourse. I force myself to continue. Ever so often, I look up and weakly smile at the Indian businessman to my right. He can see the concern on my face and returns my troubled pleasantry in a polite way—I take a half glance at him and then turn away, leaving him with an uncompleted return smile. I won’t end it with him, and I won’t end it with

Departure

It’s hard to leave. I have to pull away from my body just to drive down the street. And yet, I dream of other places and my house wraps python tight around my chest if I stay there too long. I read a story once of a man who split in two—he became a traveler, and a teacher. The traveler ran to the stars, the teacher stayed wooden desk rooted to the earth. Sometimes I wish I were that man. I would send myself out to be a pirate. I would slash and burn, grog bury myself in the worst ports on earth and I would be an animal—a vicious rogue of the seas that attacked the land locked like a drunken typhoon. But I would also be a lover, a father, and an asset to those that live around me. I would plant and grow. I would create and shape a world of peace that at random times my other self could come ashore and destroy.