The Essence of Vibe

Open the book and flip through the pages,
Over and over contemplating the lines of meaning and miniscule words.
Squinting deeply as if the sun appeared at your door for a visit,
Search for the reason; seek to find a point like a line of best fit.
Put your hand onto the surface and watch as the pages eat your aching fingers.
Can this feeling be possible, is this what I am suppose to feel like?
Frantically flip the book to search the index for “Unknown feeling,”
Q, R, S, T, U, the only U being “Uniform.”

Quickly flip to the referenced location, 21724,
The words grab at your skull and stir your brain like soup with its finger.
The only words on the page lay in the middle of it all.
“This is how it was, how it is and how it must be. Take a number, your time has come.”
Scramble across the pages, heart beating so loud to stir Beethoven in his grave.
28, 36, the pages ascending in order, yet conveying in disorder,
Raising your sight to the ceiling you yell from the pits of your dark soul.

The air around you grabs at your throat with murderous intent,
Indentifies you like a virus, surrounds you like white blood cells ready to tear you apart.
You must run, run to a place where this air does not exist,
“Run little boy, run until your feet bleed conformity!”
How can one out run something that surrounds the entire world,
Living, infesting, hiding dormant like a parasite in its life stream.
They must not know your eyes lay upon the book, they will know you search.
“Burn it, burn it, burn it!”

Grabbing the book you run, run anywhere, anywhere but here,
Crossing waters of lost souls with bottomless depths,
“Join us, join us, join us!”
The water screams your name; they reach at you with desperate hands,
“Run little boy, we will find you!”
The air presses further onto your shoulders, like an unwanted piggy back,
Its hands creep around your neck, and slowly crawl across your face.

You run harder; to try and buy more time, there must be somewhere to go!
Heavier it presses down on you like Atlas holding the world.
Running through forests with trees and their empty presences,
Birds screaming taunts that squirm in your eardrum like worms.
Closer now caressing your face, savoring the moment like a lover,
It reaches in for a kiss and as its tongue slithers into your mouth,
It flows down your throat like water, but gagging you like a kidnapper’s cloth.

Slower now, your fast beating heart rocks your cage like a baby in a crib,
Your once vibrant alive thoughts, now birth more soothing, relaxing images.
“We told you, we tried to warn you.”
5, 4, 3, t-minus your life in counting.
Wrapping its hands around your heart it squeezes it like a child to its teddy bear,
Pushing its tiny annoying fingers into your air sacs in your lungs,
Falling over you feel the inevitable change taking hold.
As you fall to the ground the book slips from your hand,
You lie and let the twinkle fade from your eye, as the book flips over to show its title,
“Humanity.