ab initio, ad infinitum

the wanderer.

PART THREE IN THE PEOPLE SERIES. i'm full of updates today XD. in the spirit of the giving series, i'm posting this one (though updates will probably be a lot more sporadic in the upcoming year whoops) as an early xmas present. welcome. ;) seriously though, please enjoy, and have an amazing rest of the holiday season and year! (also i think somebody else by  the 1975 rlly vibes w this piece though i dunno why?? someone pls solve this mystery for me XD) do good, be well. <3

T H E    W A N D E R E R.

He was the wanderer. The one with restless feet and drifting mind and a seemingly endless reserve of energy. He was the one to go anywhere and everywhere; an empty world map was tattooed between his shoulder blades and he was determined to fill every inch with red ink. He had fingers that danced listlessly on every available surface, tapping patterns of the songs that his mind sung.

Songs of adventure and discovery and soaring to unimaginable heights. That's what he wanted, he wanted his feet to lift from the ground as his lungs filled with air, his heart leading his toes out of his shoes as he floated into the sky. The one with the wind. He wanted to feel everything, to see everything, to do everything. He wanted to live.

Living to him was experiencing all of life that he could, and he could never have enough. His legs carried him swiftly from one place to another, his butterfly steps light and fluid to give him more time. Because he needed more time. Moremoremoremoremore.

Some called him impatient, some called his energy admirable. He couldn't care about what they said. He was the one who drifted on the outskirts of parties, flitting from one group to another, bright smiles and always full solo cup his flawless social guides. He never was exceptionally close to anyone, because people desired commitment, and that was the one thing he could not give. He was a wanderer and his heart yearned to see the world, and he was not the one to deny his heart. And so he stayed unattached, a cloud of a boy, drifting to where the breeze would take him.

But what people didn't see behind the easy grin and childlike wonder in the eyes of the wanderer, was the emptiness and sorrow that he held as well. The wanderer wanted, because the wanderer had nothing else. The wanderer knew how it was like to feel so brittle and empty, that he couldn't help but need to be full full full. He had nothing to lose.

The wanderer never belonged. His roots never dug deep enough into the earth, the soil was always fresh under his feet. He was always movingmovingmoving and never homehomehome. Maybe wanderers like him were never meant to have homes.

Instead he soaks in culture and language and sights and smells and tastes like a sponge, his camera's memory never enough for all the photos he wants to take. He learns and he laughs and he goes on, filling his heart with temporary things that make him whole.

But that isn't a tragic fate, no. The wanderer knows what tragedy is, and this is not it.

This is the way he lives his life. This temporary thing that he never allows himself to get used to, he doesn't know how. Instead the wanderer is a cloud, drifting and drifting and drifting, and a sponge, soaking and soaking and soaking, and the wanderer lives, feeling and feeling and feeling.

The wanderer knows how time is like coal and gas and ore and minerals. Finite. He knows that time stops ticking for everyone eventually, as the wanderer is no stranger to death. The wanderer has felt loss and grief and the wanderer has stayed up many nights, wondering why people do the things they do when their time is limited. Why do the frivolous things that don't matter when there's a world out there waiting to be discovered, full of things that do matter?

And one of those nights, the wanderer found himself in a shop with greasy windows and linoleum flooring and one lady who wore ink for sleeves who greeted him with an inquisitive glance. He found himself seated in a chair whose glory days had long since passed, gritting his teeth as a needle sunk into his skin, over and over and over. He found himself with a world on his back - the weight he carried then and carries now - and he found that the metallic sharp stabs of pain that washed over his teeth as the lady with ink for sleeves worked on his masterpiece, faded into the taste of joy and hope and freedom, almost too sweet for him to handle. But the wanderer needed something sweet. He had ignored that song his heart had always sang – for freedom for adventure for explore for living – for much too long.

And after that night - a map tattooed on his back - the wanderer begun his quest to nowhere and everywhere, to live but never settle, to feel everything and anything and never hold himself back. There's no time to hold back.

The wanderer was once full of anger and pain and words meant to be yelled and hurled at others, but the world taught him to be kinder and softer and gentler. The world taught him about the unmistakable beauty that drapes itself over the entire world, and the wanderer has learnt on his many travels for which directions he has to look in order to see it; the perfect angle that the world aligns and quiets for a minute, long enough for him to feel his pulse throughout his body and the life that thrums in everything.

The wanderer has lived through tragedy and anger and heartbreak, but through his wanders he's learnt a lot more of the world, learnt a lot more on living. He's learnt that in order to live, he must be amongst the living and not venture with the ghosts of past. He's learnt that pain and sorrow and suffering are very real, but they are only one side of the coin. He's learnt that most people are content to settle down, dig their roots deep and commit to whatever life that can scrounge for themselves, but there are others like him – wanderers – who wander on the face of the planet searching for something.

And the wanderer has learnt that he likely will never find it. That something, that missing piece that he feels is missing from his body? – he may never get it. But the search for it is what makes life memorable, and the wanderer knows how time is limited, so he will take every second with a full heart and open mind and smiling lips because he's alive.

The wanderer is alive. One day, the entire world he carries on his back will be filled in.

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