Fillings

 

My brother feels—then fills—their cheeks.

Their foreheads. Their lips. Their earlobes.

Almost everything is available for filling.

 

He does not fill boobs; that’s a differently trained filler.

 

But it seems as if there’s a filling for almost everything these days—

especially time.

 

Time, it seems, must be filled. Otherwise, you go cuckoo.

I’m a writer, which means I’m obligated to fill empty space with words.

But today, I wonder, sitting outside staring at the calm waters, with the soft breeze against my cheek:

 

Does the world need more filling? My fillings?

 

Why strive to come up with something to fill empty pages? (Why strive for anything, really, but that’s for another blank page.)

 

Do fillings protect us from feelings? Are we filling so as not to feel?

 

If I allow filling pages to be the standard of my worth, I would certainly feel a failure. Luckily, most days I don’t.

 

But is this not how society tells us to live? Are we not judged according to how well we fill?

 

Perhaps filling is inevitable. Perhaps I’m Don Quixote fighting windmills. Perhaps my words are empty breath—like “fast food,” which, though lacking in nutritional value, fills the space, nonetheless.

 

A filling that doesn’t fill; doesn’t fulfill; only takes up space.

 

Music fills the space in the background of my living room, leaving its impressions. Impressed upon me. No, not “fills the space”—

 

It plays with the space; paradoxically, opening new space as it fills. It’s filling and opening. A filling that doesn’t try to suffocate me.

 

I want to fill pages like this music fills silence.

 

 

 

 

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