The renewed presence of nothingness

I was just laying there, arms outstretched, relaxing silently under a light sheet while enjoying the soft breeze of the ceiling fan above. My mind was empty, just being in the moment, searching for nothing and getting everything in return. This moment could last forever.

I feel her reach for me, softly caressing my shoulder and the arm, followed by tender kisses to trace where her fingertips had been. Her lips were soft, perfect, loving and tender as they stirred me from my trance. They moved slowly down…down…down.

I was awakened before the moment of contact I so anticipated. I looked around the darkened room, lit only by the pending dawn and the warning of sunlight to come. As my eyes hastened to clear from the dream I had just endured I searched for her, my love, my life, my despair. Hidden beneath the layers of blankets she was, sound asleep and ready for nothing remotely close to what my body yearned for. My head hit the pillow with a thump and my mind slowed to receive that which it was dreading with every part of its being…

..the renewed presence of nothingness.

It is the sort of thing one gets used to but never really enjoys. No warm touches, no unrequested kisses, no show of desire save the random “you want to go in the bedroom?” or the casual wearing of sexy attire. Something’s missing, and I can’t put my finger on it yet (or perhaps my finger is afraid of what it will feel when it finds it) but I know it’s there. It’s kind of like a cold draft on a winter’s day and you just can’t find the source, or a drip on your head in the darkness. Damn annoying thing…

Such dreams are common for me. Perhaps it is the cold reality that brings me to such warm things in my sleep. I often wonder if this is how a sun worshiper feels while on vacation in Seattle, or how a bird feels when its broken wing keeps it from taking flight. Such is the loss of something you love, the very part of you that makes you whole, the part of you that cannot be found in any other place or part, yet the part of you that is needed most. It is empty, it is cold, it is…

…the renewed presence of nothingness.

So we drone on, like zombies in some B horror movie with subtitles to blurry to read. We live our roles, fight to hold on to the vestiges of arrogance that ensure the draft remains regardless of how distant that draft’s source may be. We must remain rigid to our goal, to beat one another into submission, to win the battle. We must pay not only for our sins but be beaten with them. We must chill the air around us for whatever reason we create. Such is the state we are in.

This is not about our imperfections, but the constant reliving of them. We are imperfect, no doubt, but imagine reopening the or a wound not weekly, not daily, not even hourly but nearly every minute of every day and then expecting it to heal or not even be bothersome. We are imperfect, in fact we are only perfect in being imperfect. So to be so utterly destroyed in those things that just are for as long as we are seems insane at best.

Yet here we are, and I prepared to drift off to another nights visit to heaven, to feel that which makes me feel alive, that which feeds me thoughts of paradise and of that entanglement between love and lust that somehow creates such joy in that which does not exist. I will dance in the rain while basking in the glow of the sun. And yet when the dawn comes we shall still have all the ability to see dreams turn to life, lust turn to love, love turn to lust and all that could be become what is. All that could be wasted on the inevitable and unbearable weight of being in…

…the renewed presence of nothingness.