It is happening again, a new page has been turned in the seemingly infinite tome of human existence. A new year cozied up right behind the last, starting over, the same color, green at first and then brown, then green and brown again, forever. I've realized lately that I have simplified everything into cycles, things that reach a certain limit and begin again, rituals, habitual endlessness. My heart drums over and over and over, I inhale and exhale, blink without thinking or remembering. I go to sleep when I'm tired, I wake up when I'm hungry, take one pill in the morning and one pill at night, lock the door when I leave, turn the key twice, and twice more when I get home. Make the bed, light the candles, blow them out, tuck myself in. Type one letter, then the next, then the next, plink plink plink. And then the bigger ones, the songs that get stuck in my head— in our heads— those catchy, repetitive beats, the chorus we hate but know by heart. Our relationships, beginning so small and warm, then all that heat, the balloon stretched so big, and then the winter again, shriveled and thin, a bare branch in the snow, hibernating until next time. Making tea because it feels less lonely that way. Water becomes steam or ice, melts down again, or rains, or is drunk and then. Hair grows, falls out, grows back, gets cut, pinned up, let down, washed, dried and then. It's the happy hunting ground, shooting without a gun, and the rabbits play dead but bounce up again. All at the pace of Internet browsing, quick, and antsy. Animated .GIFs, loading, changing and repeating. It's a dance, beautiful choreography, 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8, 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8...

This isn't really the way time moves, is it? This isn't the way stories are told. But it's not the other way— beginning middle end— either. It can't be. The end is the beginning, or it could start in the middle, couldn't it?

[The rest can be read here: katiearmstrong.com/oncemoreoncemore.shtml]

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Made and shown at the Leipzig International Art Residency Program in Leipzig, Germany. For more information, mozy on over to katiearmstrong.com