It wasn’t a love immediately apparent,

apparition,

something like ether in her soul hole,

a soul glow.

A pull yes,

but love?

 

Love can’t be.

She pushes it away,

politely.

“No thank you, I cannot have anymore,

I am full,

stuffed

from too many five-course heartaches.”

 

However,

she reminds herself,

the loves lately,

they’re different,

like that of some sweet delicate decadence,

a perfectly sized desert.

It needs nothing.

It asks for nothing,

and she is not stretched

when she eats from its sweetness.

 

So on this night

the new moon tugs gently

on each toe

and she is alone,

but not lonely.

She remembers the roads

across the country,

filled with people

she would travel for days to embrace.

 

On this night,

she remembers

a particular smile,

particle of stardust.

A specific light

in an explicit eye.

She realizes it

suddenly

and swiftly

and not without

utter amusement…

 

She fell in love.

 

The reaction

to this realization

hasn’t preceded her.

 

She’s laughing,

and crying,

laughing

and crying

at once.

 

The laugh deeply uninhibited

the cry, thick fullness.

 

The more she laughs,

the more she cries

and upon realizing

that they are really the exact same thing,

she laughs and cries

even harder.

 

It’s absurd

and brilliant

and beautiful.

 

This minor occurrence,

the thought of love in a dark room,

brought a oneness unexpected.

The empty, clear void

the only constant

in any of this.

In all of this.

 

Sky and Earth,

death and birth,

opposites fall on each other

like lovers in union,

no longer something separate,

 

but the very same thing.

 

Now the middle her heart has imploded

into the nothingness

of everything.

 

Author: Renee Anderson

Editor: Emma Ruffin

Photo: Courtesy of Amy Bartley