In each life, there comes a time when loneliness arrives.
Knocking at your door, your mind weary from the ceaseless procession of work,
Longing once more for the sensation of touch;
The brush of another’s skin against your own
Or the gentle embrace of a handshake or hug.
Anything to pull you out of the blurry gray environment that has enveloped you.
The once generous gift of solitude turned its back on you.
Replacing it instead with an ache for the presence or touch of another
A dense quiet chokes the air of all sound or natural rhythms.
Its relaxing nature turned desperate, longing for something different;
The sound of even a dew drop to disrupt the silence would be a gift.
But instead there is a stillness that is eerie, as if all the lights have turned out around you.
Within the ocean of quiet emerges a click, a light turned on.
Someone has found me within the void, someone maybe to rescue me.
As days pass with my newfound ally,
Silence is abandoned and replaced with the newness of sound that won’t cease.
I begin to wonder if maybe the one has come,
come to fish me out of the ocean of loneliness, of quiet, and of dark.
The electric brush of our fingers allows my mind to wonder
“Will this be the light that stays on and doesn’t burn out?”
The current transfers from one finger to the other,
Our eyes speak a thousand words into the soul of the other as our gazes are held fast.
Pools of crystal clear water glisten before me, searching for something as we move closer still.
As I lean in, my eyes gently shut, and in the pinnacle of the moment, a shiver runs through me.
Opening my eyes, I realize that there is darkness again; the light has vanished.
Of course this would happen, it always did.
Some lights fool you with their brightness and burn out faster even than others.
Such are the consequences of letting someone in, into your space and into your heart,
when you allow their hands to hold your own.
Each thing has its end;
What makes one moment more valuable than the other?
If a wind blows the flame from a lighter as it ignites, did it ever light?
What distinguishes the sensation of love from the state of being in love?
And how does it always manage to shake your world,
to turn gray to color or turn color to gray?
What can we do to protect our fragile hearts, objects of fragile vitality?
And when will we learn to ignore the lights that beckon us to turn our head?
Which lights will blind us and which will show us the way?
The difference is never clear, always a trick of the light fooling our eyes and our hearts.
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Photo credit: @drawing on Pinterest
