Lucy and the Football

I have done this before. 

It is a feeling I am familiar with. 

I can see the ball.

Its......right........there.  

So inviting. 

But somehow, its fuzzy-- not quite clear. 

I suppose that is the expected result

Of all the times before 

When the glass was chipped or stained or just neglected. 

But I can squint...just...enough. 

Maybe I do not even see it for real. Maybe I just feel it there.  Twenty or so feet away. 

May as well be another hemisphere.  

But... Once pavlovs dogs howl you no longer have a choice in the matter. 

And you are compelled to try.  Hard as you can to make it different. 

To ensure an outcome unlike the last one, or the one before, or the one before that. Or like that entire page in the planner that read 1999.

So I run.

And I fall. 

The topic doesnt even much matter. For the running and the falling are the same. 

The concept just as painful and the bruise just as deep. 

I dust myself off. 

Search about for the bottle...

Advil or stronger.  Maybe both. 

And I think to myself that there are not too many balls left to kick.  Or maybe there arent too many reasons to try. 

I shake my head. 

Blame myself as I always do. 

Head in hands on the bench. 

No winning field goal kicked. 

Wondering if the ball was ever there in the first place. 

So scared... Too scared... To even think for a minute that it is, perhaps, the games that play me. And not me them. 

I look at the grass stains, the polyp on the ultrasound, the stress pounds above my waistband, the wagging judging fingers questioning my every move, every dream. 

And I just have to wonder about what happens.

When Charlie Brown finally says no.