taken

We met for the first time... a flash in time... a flicker... and yet there was much more than a flicker. Bright lights crashed within and voices called out your name to me through the night. I cursed circumstance and chance. I longed for a different time and place... somewhere we could meet and be free to choose the path from there. A spark, a link, a whispering of what could be. And yet, there you were... so close but out of reach.

I awoke to a brilliant African sun. I took my mother out shopping and for lunch and then came home to read in the sunlit garden. A storm moved in and violently shook the earth. Hail fell as thunder and lightning seemed to rock the house. Then, suddenly, the sky cleared and the sun reappeared with calm. Music and alcohol soothed the soul as the sun shone with a promise of peace.

Alas, 'tis in the dark death of night that one feels most lonely. In a few nights I'll leave this wandering listless place where little happens and move onto another even more silent and empty space where I will resume my lonely, frugal life outside of the love and care of any other human being. For that is a place where my existence goes unnoticed and untouched by those I reach out to silently. It's a reaching of the mind and heart, it's metaphorical.

A sigh and a cry in the night. People reaching out for love and understanding. Reaching out in pain. Some are fighting, others are making love, others are desperately lonely. We all end up alone. Thrown out into the empty void, the reins are invisible but real. There is duty and expectation. There is longing for those already taken and often so far away.

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