sweat

journal entry 1: a trickle down my neck whispering that time is not my friend

The year begins in sweat.

The sweat of movement, of reaching, of bending past breath I thought was mine and finding air that tastes like new. Realizing it somehow, still, belongs to you—the ghost of something familiar. Something I’ll forever recognize before it even reaches my lungs.

Hot yoga sweat. Skin sticking to a mat that holds me like it knows the weight of not knowing. The clench of quads and the drip of resolve pooled below until my feet slip. My spine curves like a question mark, searching the ceiling for answers, for God, for a different visage to appear in the mirror across the room.

There is no enlightenment here. Not today. Just a plump reflection gazing back, eyes glazed, unmoored—unrecognizable. Is this where we find truth? In the salt-stained silence between breaths?

New year, new me, same carousel—different tempo, new nausea. What does it mean to move forward when the past clings like damp bedsheets? I’m just sweating it out—hot yoga, hot bodies, hot thoughts—gripping at what’s already lost, fingernails bleeding on nostalgia’s edge. Life tastes metallic, but I bite down anyway—tongue searching for something sweeter, something that doesn’t taste like yesterday.

Gym sweat, gym floors, gym mirrors. Everything reflecting back the question: Do I look like I’m going somewhere? The sweat doesn’t come in beads—it pours, soaking my nights and mornings. A trickle down my neck whispering that time is not my friend.

So, what do I want? Perhaps, just this. The sweat that feels like living—yoga sweat, gym sweat, reckless-at-midnight sweat. The kind that drowns doubt, that dizzies me into believing that movement means change.

Perhaps I will gorge myself on dreams like they’re fresh bread and honey. Devour fear. Lick the crumbs from my lips.

This is life, for now. A pause. A prayer disguised as prose. But maybe tomorrow, it will be something more.

Something burning.

Something old?

Something… new.

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