Tell Her

Their eyes met, almost naturally, for the second time today. The look ignites into a gaze, set ablaze by a fire in their beating hearts, kindled with the blood, passion, and fury of possible paths and impossible worlds.

A pull exists between them, a magnetism, an aura, an undertow. Two planets, one warm one cold, drift softly into the orbit of the other, threaten beauty, promise chaos; and as a cataclysm begins to spiral in the space between them, its coming destruction becomes even more devastatingly incalculable the closer their skin comes to touch.

But such is the fate of all cosmic objects, never to be held, choked to be spoken, created to fall deeply, madly, insatiably from the sky like the heavens around us and die like all else. So we leap, like we always do, into the pyres of another’s flame, curiously forgetting the creation of this new world brings about the inevitable end of two more.

This is our prized addiction, riddled with cold sweats, rumbled tummies; a curse, a judge, a jury, a sentence condemning those who hear it and like pyroclasmic magic burning only those who still believe in it. Found in busy college hallways, empty alleys, every story ever told except the ones we tell ourselves more often than we’d like to admit.

We’re reminded of its vital nature when the notifications cease, when the e-mailman stops coming; when friends give us snapshots of their stories and never of their sprawling minds, portraits of their filtered faces but not a brushstroke of their painted souls.

Or when the room darkens, nearly unlit, into a spectacle of dim whites and pale blues, signifying a TV on somewhere in another room, where the remnants of absent passion assault our ears, our lies, and our lives through the tireless moan and rhythmless rattle of the only thing that’s still breathing in there anymore… (don't worry, it's just an old air conditioner…)

He found and lost it up North one Summer on an empty lake, in the moments before an exhale of a sigh, released like breath upon dandelion snow; a single end, countless beginnings. Time, faith, courage, and a canoe was what he needed to get there (you might need something else, so be careful), don’t get lost, it’s different every time, sometimes a left at the pier, sometimes a right, sometimes you have to keep going, unable to see past the dense colorless fog of warm air over cold water, but for those few months he found it and was encapsulated by the journey of it all.

The splash of laughter, the yellow fish, the sadness in an August breeze, the sand in their hair, and life without words to spoil it. He still searches for it sometimes, carefully and sparingly, but rarely catches a glimpse.

He never hears about it anymore, never feels it, (God forbid tastes it) but ever so often, like twice today, he sees it and is terrified by it. What does one do with such an image of our luminous lives? A look that lingers and departs just as quick as it was brought upon back into the wretched loneliness that gave it tears and eyes for this precise purpose. Anyone? What does he really wanna do? Give it a chance? Two truths and a lie? Cross his heart and hope to die? It’s right there, staring right back at him. Bright eyes, a shale wish, a dream of drowning where you emerge and fade, emerge and fade, choking on nothing, dying on some distant beach, waiting for a kindred spirit to softly begin your resuscitation with a little mouth to mouth…

And boy is it complicated.

It’s never born, never actually dies, just washes away, only to be rebuilt again, trampled again, lost again, found again, forgotten again, thrown away (again), overlooked (again), mistaken for something else, ripped to shreds, wrecked beyond all imagination, marginalized, battered upon, ignored, and struck upon a match and burned for fun…

And boy is it complicated.

So there he stood, arms out, over sandcastles begging for the waves not to come, for the rain not to fall, but if we never wanted to break we never should’ve built, no, no, not on this planet. Yea, you’ve seen the sunset, had some grapes, but have you seen the storms? They’re not just outside. The sandcastles, they’re not just outside. The changing seasons, crashing tides, everything and everyone wants us to give up and die (and they’re not just outside.)

So believe me, Love, the castle’s lit, it’s

Buried but the motive fits, I’m broken,

Burnt, and holding on with words that hold

Me like your arms once did, once, upon a–

And right before his eyes she materializes, the woman of his gorgeous nightmare, the one he’s been waiting for since before our God made stars and time and dedicated this very moment for him to find... Something boils from within and perspires, becoming frost upon his heart, slowing it, almost to a complete stop, and then he realizes-

She’s still staring.

And so is he.

Gazing obliviously from the shadow of his looming soul, he panics because she sees him and doesn’t know, he tries to speak but nothing comes but a distant echo from an endless hole… Hoping to be… Praying to be... Dying to be... Anything.

Tell her.

I don’t know what it is about you. Tell her. It’s… It’s embarrassing how I feel. Tell her. It’s never like this, or it-it hasn’t been for years. Tell her. Maybe long ago, when I was small, but standing here before you now makes me so unsure. Tell her. But I loved you in another life and must’ve lost you ’til now. Tell her. Please, please keep looking. Tell her. I'm begging you. Praying to a God that doesn’t believe in me, or doesn’t listen (or both.) But I love you. I love you. I love you... And I haven't the faintest idea why.

In her eyes he sees lightning and in his own he feels a primordial storm, brewing with power and purpose; carrying a message from the original explosion that brought us to this very place, a room, four walls, a moment in time, a suspended sliver of space, where he can go on and on and on and on… Or he can just-

Tell her.