cold

They told me that I was born on a day when lilacs bloomed. They said that it was I who
had brought the fragrance into the world with my first cry.
What power in tears. Power in a terminal forcing of air and noise. What weakness when crying ceases to be for one's self. The infant, blue and wet, cries for itself. It knows nothing other than the self it has been forced to be. Languid touches are all that it knows of others. What is joyous about such pain? Yet others respond, hailing these primal outcries as music for their own entertainment. The infant grows and while maturing into a human being, learns the pain of a different longing. It learns to weep for others. The figures that bring light into the room of its soul become more important than the soul itself. It learns to cry the tears for others. These tears are no longer entertaining to them. They are suspect and become as white noise, impenetrable and monotonous. The germ of isolation grows and takes over until there is nothing else.
When did people first become alone? Were they ever truly a part of something else? Why such longing for communion? Have we created this need out of imagination? Perhaps we were never as one. Perhaps existence was meant to be cast in the unlit world of longing.
I remember the promises. Unspoken as most of them were, I remember, and there grew a space inside of myself that I believed would someday be filled. It had to be. Hope glimmered in darkness that enveloped me and I prayed to the God they gave me. I think of this God with sorrow for He is no more. My prayer became mere words falling from my heart and lips only to be received by silence. I remember the promise, as it is a scar on my spirit. I remember the day that I realized that there was no God; that my prayers were in vain; that the promises mere folly. I felt as an ill-fated fetus, ripped from the womb of God before ever breathing the air of life. I remember the hope but its memory is not strong enough to hold me here. Something is pulling me into the shadows and I know it is only a matter of time before it succeeds.
It is difficult to live this life without God. I fantasize about the promise of heaven and eternal love and wish that it still was real for me. Instead, I see the beauty of existence around me within the colors and lines of life and within me grows a deepening sorrow. This sorrow is the only foundation that keeps me from being completely lost. I picture myself floating on the fingertips of a breeze, full of desire for true grounding--permanence in a frightening universe that lives in my very being. Why must I see such things? Why can't I have that innocent peace of oblivion?
Why must I see the horror? I cannot will God to be back inside of me. One cannot command
Grace.
The world creates pathways for those whom have lost use of hearing and sight. But what of those who cannot feel touch? Who know not the warmth and security of an embrace, the pressure of another's hand on one's cheek? What of those who can no longer smell the aroma of strawberries and the sweetness of their blood? The newborn's first need is kinesthetic. It can live without food for a time, and even sight and hearing without deadly effects. But to be deprived of touch is surely to be fatal. Without touch there can be no trust and without trust there can be no hope.
I loved someone once. Many times. Love was all I ever wanted. To love. To be loved. To give love. To be love. Love was all I ever wanted to be. Perhaps due to a lack of proper identity. I don't know.
Perhaps due to some sick need. I do not care. It matters not now for I can see that love will always be a familiar stranger to me; someone I may see often but never learning her name.
He comes to my mind in a flash and the image of him is bittersweet and at times brutal. I remember the first time I saw him. It seems as only yesterday but in fact, it has been a lifetime. I cannot recall what drew me to him. Perhaps it was his sadness. Some people wear their sadness in such a way that it shines like diamonds on top of the ocean. You want to swim in that ocean and drown. You want to swallow the salty water until it fills your lungs and you can no longer breathe. You want to die into them and rest on sandy floor of their being. Perhaps it was his unusual way of expressing his thoughts--the deliberateness of his words. Perhaps it was the way his hands moved when he spoke, calling out to be touched and held. They seemed to be very soft and warm hands but I shall never know their reality. Perhaps it was because of his cruelty. Perhaps it was because of his love. I will never remember but it does not matter now. That lifetime has passed and every moment is now just an image navigating the depths of my being. I think of him and cannot escape the thought of death.
As she walked through the woods, it began to rain. The rain disappeared into her hair and skin. The marriage of wet and dry Giving birth to child droplets of tears that slid down her cheeks and neck like expert skiers only to be forever lost in a quick and sudden life cycle. Every tear differing in momentum according to the strength of emotion it held in its tiny body. In the end, tears are always non-judgm6ntal. There is no difference between the tear cried in joy and the tear cried in anguish.
The trees heard her. Grey trees in the mist. Like fingers poking through the hardened earth searching for life. She always wanted to be a tree, especially in winter. Bare of leaves and buds. Naked beauty seemed taunted by her gaze. She collected photographs of trees, especially the dead ones. Their presence, even devoid of life, mingled with her deepest longings. There is no horizontal growth. Everything alive and with -soul is vertical, yet our thinking is linear. Perhaps this was the beginning of our death, our isolation. No wonder we run around in circles, never able to catch up to our deepest dreams. The trees heard her steps and did not respond. Her presence was thick but she thought herself to be invisible. She did not know that the wind enjoyed brushing against her f ace. She did not know that the trees delighted in her admiration of them. She believed she was invisible. In fact, she knew it. In her mind everything pointed to her transparency. She walked the earth feeling nothing from outside of herself, horrified by her thoughts and feeling completely unconnected to all but her hope and that, too, was weakening. She could not brush it off. She could not make it go away, it was her. Sadness and longing were as much a part of her as her gender. The abyss is not to be hung over, she thought, but rather it surrounds one's own being. Groundlessness is not under on6's feet but in one's heart or soul. Nothingness it not silence or even emptiness but rather language and custom. Death occurs while one lives and loneliness is other people. As: she walked, the ground quickened under her feet. It began to become dark and she knew she must go home. I must go home. Home? I shall never be home. Home was just another one of their promises. When she felt the pain she often whispered to herself, I want to go home. She waits in the darkness. She melts into the darkness; the air is frightened by her breath. She closes her eyes and welcomes it. It puzzles her that those who fear death the most are most often the ones who find most comfort in sleep. When do we begin to fear death? Does the fear begin before or after one becomes afraid of the dark? Perhaps they occur at the same moment. Prayers and night-lights are fraternal twins, protecting us from the singularity of non-existence. She waits. For the light that had been promised to her as a girl. Her inner voice tells her that the only 1ight is to be found within.
However, only terror could be found within her. It devoured any traces of light and made her feel thick and empty. They told me I was beautiful. I am aware of what kind of person I am. Although I want to be less self-centered and self-consumed, I cannot. I see the hypocrisy in myself. It sings to me arias of lies and wishes. I have tried to pass through myself to no avail. Because of my ability to recognize my own hypocrisy I have the power to see it in others as well. I know when people are lying because I am a liar. I know when people are fooling themselves because I am the master of such deceit.
Hers was a darkness that knew not of such light. It had been forgotten- perhaps in exchange for the lilacs' gift of scent, yet still she hoped. Hope for her was a frightening entity. It seemed to exist on its own, invisible, like a wind. Truly existing. She wondered what it felt like to be wind. Invisible even to itself. To be invisible to all others is hell but to be invisible to oneself as well would be true existence. @- It would be pure and without longing. Proof in its reality' would only be found in things other than itself. There would be no isolation. Hope was similar to wind for her. She feared the day that it would be gone forever. She feared it but she knew that it was inevitable. She could feel its movement within her becoming less and less. The day it leaves will be her most quiet moment. She wondered whether if in death the darkness would continue, or perhaps give way to a light, or perhaps a state of neither. Her darkness sits with her. Sometimes it sits as a friend, but most other times as a reminder of itself. Eternal
mirrors of her existence. Yet her eyes had learned to adjust and were keen to the darkness of others. When she was not so self-centered, she had moments of communion with those of the deepest wounds. There was beauty in such recognition; there was love.
She longed for love with another with the grace of Bach's Suite no. 3. Peaceful sweetness and lightness of the dancing notes of flutes and whispers in sunlight. These muses called to her from somewhere within. She would give everything for such a love and indeed she had tried. Yet underneath the green waves were always the rocks onto which she crashed. She wondered why a dream of such a love was@.plac4d within her yet not a heart capable of finding it. The darkness called to her even though she feared it so at times. She hated to say goodbye, to him especially. She didn't know how to close this chapter of her life. She imagined him forever lost in the adagio of her heart. She knew she meant nothing to him. That she could never mean anything to him. They were only her tears that witnessed such a love. She would forever carry him in her mind and soul; his face sad yet untouchable--his arms weary yet unembraceable. The joy of his laughter so far away from her. She would carry him like bricks throughout eternity. The sounds of his footsteps and the rhythm of his stride would no longer exist for she would no longer be able to receive their music. She began to cry and her tears fell like stones, warm and wet, each encapsulating every desire, every silly wish. Yet she knew that each tear was redundant in its pathetic journey. All she could do was run back into the shadows once and for all. She knew she was already forgotten.
She was leaving. She was helpless. She could not make herself stay. She knew that she could not live so close yet knowing she could never see his face again nor hear his tender voice yet still breathe the same air that he had possibly breathed through his body.
She could not imagine how their lovemaking would have been because she could not imagine ever affecting him in anyway except irritation. The shadows however, could imagine and indeed they did. He would touch her and feel the warmth of her desire. As he-bends down to kiss her she looks through him, as if becoming part of him and reading al.1 of his thoughts and secrets. Their tongues introduce the beginning, tastes of passion and their bodies become one. As he enters her he feels a heat that seems to pull him further into her without resistance. They become one, body moving to a sacred rhythm; no thought, no looking ahead nor back. He feels her tremble tightly around him as she begins to climax. At once he feels they were being swept up into the currents of a gale and as they come together they fall onto the ocean rocks; salty spray covering them with remembrances to take with them as they descend into a peaceful calm. In the corners of her eyes lay a hint of tears or sweat. He is not sure. He kisses them and still could not decide; yet he does not ask. They lay together, still as one, yet strangely separate. He thinks he loves her but he knows that love, can never be because his life had already been mapped out. He senses that she already knows this even though he says neither a word nor a sigh.
They told me that Antarctica is the coldest place on earth.
How could that be? Is cold only sensed by the skin? What of the coldness of an empty gaze upon the warmth of life and love that cannot be one's own? If one were trapped beneath the thick Antarctic ice, lungs filling with the indifferent water would it be much different than being trapped in the vacuum of one's despair and human loneliness? Yes, the earth is savage. We pretend it is not and we build vacation resorts at the feet of volcanoes. We Attempt to deny monsoons with our meager umbrellas in a false sense of security and a hidden sense of envy and hatred for the peace in being savage; for the peace in being trees and weeds. Emotions too are savage. We do the same with them. They are the savage beasts of the inner world. We build, insubstantial relationships at the feet of volcanic pools of love and despair. We swim in man-made pools of chlorinated 'water of fear and dread, clutching plastic serpents with joy. We dip our toes in such waters thinking that we have harnessed the power of oceans. We remain forever alien to ourselves--to others. We watch out windows and mistake peeping and spying for true interaction and presence. All the while, our insides churn. Our beasts of passion and truth that are too wild and ominous to tame to our delight, gnaw at their chains in order to become free. We sense this struggle and secretly desire to free the beast but the risk is too great. To acknowledge one's helplessness is not healthy. If we are lucky, we remain ignorant to the beasts. If we are wise, we give them their freedom. Otherwise we remain cold.
She could no longer remain in the grips of emptiness. Hope was gone. The time had come and still she knew not why. She could no longer bear the cold. She could no longer endure the silent truth of her life'. She wandered the streets in search of a way out, a way back to the home that never was. Her heart cried out to her to remain strong and not give up but it was too late. She was invisible and could no longer remain only invisible to others. She hated to say goodbye but it seemed that goodbye was the only enduring word, in her thoughts and memory. The one time in her life, albeit brief, where she felt a part of something bigger than herself was over. The one time in her life where she came close to feeling at home was now gone. Life had to go on and to her it seemed to be expected-that it be a simple transition--a simple parting, even a time for joy. The bricks under her feet did not recognize her although she passed over them everyday. At certain hours the sun reached from behind her and cast her silhouette in the maroon pieces of her path. Yet she did not notice and she could not see. As she walked, she spoke lightly: Goodbye trees. Each of your tender branches has held me close in my lonely existence. Goodbye wind that I cannot see, yet at one time played intimate games upon my nakedness in my mind. Goodbye my love who was never my love. She recited Marvell one last time as she approached her final stop.
"As lines so loves oblique may well
Themselves in every angle greet
But ours so truly parallel,
Though infinite can never meet.
Therefore the love which us doth bind
But fate so enviously debars
Is the conjunction of. the mind
And opposition of the stars"
The hot water began to cool as soon as her naked body slid into the tub. The scent of lost tears cried out to the silent darkness. The bathroom became a tomb that would send her off into death's shadows one last time. Her pain would be immortalized by her sudden departure. Perhaps lingering in the breeze of some distant land, her despair would one day become one with a young aspen. Years would pass And the tree would live its life among other trees; yet different somehow. Its bark a little more bitter; its pulp a little sweeter and its branches a little less free. It would live and die in despair, to one-day stand naked, broken and not knowing why--just like her. The water parted as her hand lifted the blade. Her wet skin cut like sudden silence. The heat from her body enveloped the razor in a panic. She lowered her arms into the welcoming water. The water turned a light pink. I wished I could have dried my tears with your hand but once. Her tears stopped as she closed her eyes. With a deepening red hue, the hot water held her as a mother holds an unborn child in her mind. Her breathing slowed as people passed by outside her window, laughing and enjoying the morning's sun.