Discomfort’s Sapling

How can I go another minute without kissing you? How can I refrain from hugging you, from tasting you, from feeling your warmth against my skin?

How can I remain still when the Universe is quaking all around me? How can I look at my empty hand and feign a smile? How can I find my rest when there seems so much to do?

To the fears I cannot censor, I raise my golden chalice. To the courage I cannot seem to muster, I utter a silent prayer. To them, I am just me.

I am discomfort’s sapling.

Lost, like a puppy dropped off in an unfamiliar place, inundated with newness, crippled in awe, cowering in an unfamiliar corner of my mind.

Found, like a man left on the shores of some deserted island, with no one to know but himself, with no songs to sing outside the ones ingrained in his own mind. There is so much to discover here, yet no one to share it with.

I reach out to the stars, they only stare back.

“Happiness (is) only real when shared.” ~Christopher McCandless

And so it goes. One set of footprints in the sand, with only the gulls to hear my laughter. I swear they’re laughing back at me.

I am not alone. I am with me, the rest of you are just illusions. I love the way you feel, the way you move in and out of my reality, but there has always only been one set of footprints in the sand that doesn’t really exist.

I’ve created the sound of the waves as a peaceful song in my mind to calm my wild beast. I’ve created such wonder in my heart as to wish you here, believing that the taste of your lips and the beat of your heart will somehow fill the gaps in the music I’ve created.

Another stanza, another verse. So the beat goes on.

I sit here, nearly naked, allowing the winter Sun to beat down on my longing skin through a giant window. It’s hot, almost unbearably so, but the discomfort creates some space for my vision to grow into the words I type.  This part of me I share, this part of me that is like the Sun, is that part of me I have not created but allow to be. I can’t imagine life without such a creation, without such space, without the tortured seeds that burn deep within me.

Maybe you are there and I am here because it’s the space itself we need to create this dream. Maybe if we were any closer we’d burn out. Maybe any further and we’d face a frozen death. Maybe I can’t count on the gravity of love to pull you closer. Maybe I should just be grateful you exist at all.

“Even after all this time, the Sun never says to the Earth, ‘You owe me.’ Look what happens with a love like that. It lights the whole sky.” ~Hafiz

Maybe the demand that you fill my hand and kiss my lips is too much for this universe to bear. Maybe the skies would burn and the sands would turn to broken glass upon our union. Maybe Venus was not meant to touch the skin of Mars, she was only meant to touch his heart and to tease his holy senses alive. Maybe the earth that separated them was meant to keep creation alive.

Perhaps, in time, wonders will cease to amaze me. Maybe the endless debate with mindless minions living in their past will end as I bathe in my own present moment. Perhaps my imagination will no longer be boggled, and my heart will no longer cry out any one name.

It seems right in its wrongness. It seems sharp like the blade of a well-honed axe. It will cut, I am sure, but to which trees do I choose to apply its mission? Which wood will I choose to burn?

Perhaps it’s not a choice at all. Perhaps its just a function of our Universal reality.

Love, I will leave this to you. I will do a better job of listening, of hearing that melody through the madness. I will see the patience in the lines you have drawn and the vision of the truthful shadows you have created on the canvas all around us. I will pay attention, I swear it as a sacred oath, and I will head your solemn vows.

Time for stillness, for a group hug with those whose arms are open. I simply have no other answer.