diving into the dark

It’s a relief to be here at home alone in the dark. Colored lights strung haphazardly over the doors and windows in the living room. Blue “icicle” lights strung on the windows behind me, reflecting, still and innumerable, on every glass surface in front of me–computer screens, dining room windows, my glasses if I look out the corner of my eye. The surface of this desk retains cold. It seeps into my forearms as they rest on the surface, until I have to go put on a down jacket to continue typing.

I have a feeling of being on hold. A held breath before the coming week, the coming year.

I have a feeling of incapacity. I’m not equal to The Darkest. I’m a lighter shade of pale. I’m no more than mere. My reverence is skimpy and diminished. I didn’t play my best for him, I can’t. I don’t know what that is. (Why do I imagine the Ideal demands so much of me?)

Isolation, in-soul-ation, depth perception. We’re not friendly here. Generosity and hospitality are enshrined on distant mountains, a long trek. Here we sing alone beside the twinkling ice-blue crevasse, invisible in the neighborhood, here without a campfire.