Toward

And there I was, staring intently at the word on the page. Of course, there were many other words, it was a periodical. There were many other pages. But this was THE word. This was THE page. For some reason, I knew it. I could taste this word. I could swim in its sans serif depths, catapult from the ledge of its t into the pool of its o. Why was I looking so harshly into its character?  I was interrogating the word. 'Toward,' I read aloud. And now it was real. Now its ink had been translated through the electrical highway of my central nervous system into a combination of air and muscle, reverberating from my throat like some twanging banjo in a forest clearing, tweaked by fingers both earth-grubby and delicate. Now it not only existed by virtue of some sweeping printer fingers, it existed in my body and around my head. It had been multiplied into the chords of a different perception. I was walking into it like it was a pathway into truth. I was moving toward toward. To ward? To fend off? This was a breakage, this wasn't its rightful mien. Tow ard? To move away from the arbor? I am shuffling the letters one by one like I am playing Rummikub. I am moving its cells like a biotechnologist, trying to rearrange a cat into a fish. To Draw... an infinitive. Toward contains many a line, emanating from it like spokes, but no matter how many, I continue to move toward toward. When I reach the sudden curl of its final d, I will be facing up into the heavens, I will be marching up its backbone like the shivers I get when I read to the dead. For, perhaps, when toward ends and it becomes destination, that will be where I am. Who I am. But I am stuck. I am entrenched in w, and I try to read it again and all I can say is tow. Two. To. Wot? I wager that this is it. I have dwelt on toward for far too long. I am now past toward. If I turn back I will once again move toward toward. But this is a siren's song mistake. I will be eaten by its intensity if I go back to that word. I move on. I fall off d. There is no heaven here. There is nothing but the white space of the page. And the sudden realization that the author of this periodical is also moving toward toward. I look up at the spire ahead. It is another t, falling surely into another o. I am moving away from toward by moving toward toward. And now I know it won't end. The white space will yield to this repetition. I am stuck once again staring intently at this word. At word. Toward. It is the always of this place. It is a movement that will never stop. It is time's arrow. It is entropy. It is dissolution. But it is toward. And it is a lilting reminder of continuance.