Luscious

I stand on the cusp of the dawn. One day stands between me and the night. One day followed by a long night. I step into my one day, thrilled, embattled, twisting, ecstatic.

As I am falling into it, tumbling awkwardly, arms flailing, I grab at things. I hold them for a while, but then they are ripped from my grasping hands, leaving my fingers raw, exposed, tender. I bleed for things that have been ripped from me, but I keep falling forward and there are more and more things to grab onto. This is falling through plenty. The bloodier my hands, the more I have loved.

For a while there, I was picking up speed, but I am no longer accelerating. (It must be some law of physics.) My rate is constant, the falling and flailing is steady and I have become inured to it. I used think I was out of control, but now I know that control is the mirage: the opium of the masses. We do not control anything. We only fall and flail.

Now that I’ve gotten used to it, I like it that way. My possibilities are not limited to me, but to what is being thrown at me. The more I embrace it, the more expansive my life becomes. I feel like a small boat in a strong stream that thrusts me relentlessly forward. I cannot go against the current; at best I can steer around some rocks. But the current is in control and I surrender myself unto it. It is a dream and a life.

You would think that as I fall toward the night, the light would begin to fail – but no. Just as the darkest moment of the night is right before the dawn, the day gets brighter as we begin our approach to the night. I suspect the brightest moment will be just before night falls. It will be at that moment that I understand everything, that I will burn meteor-like and all I have been and loved will explode triumphantly and burst through the barrier of the night.