Dear Leila
Sunrise is still another hour out yet, but there is a lighthouse in sight. I can hear the slow rumbling of my stomach in this quiet hour, slowly fueling me through the morrow. It strikes me that this happens every night and I simply sleep through it thoughtlessly and unappreciative of the complexity in my guts.
Tonight, however, I have swallowed something I cannot stomach.
In this turbulence in the dark hours of morning, I think of you. Before midnight it struck me: in every conceivable projection and estimate my life ends in tragedy. But I am reminded that it is not my life, but rather the vein of life I was born into, the bloodline to which I belong.
Frankly, I don’t know the stories of my ancestry well enough to recount to you, and if I did I would be buried by the particulars and leave out the meaning. Even in three generations, I have witnessed more than what I can presently write and I will spare you the attempt.
What I see in my family, I see in humanity and in my visions of packs of animals in the wild. In this hour, it seems so clear that we humans were never tamed; we are no less primitive steeped in our civilizations than we were in the woods. And this secret, so vibrantly on display, of how we maintain our nature which we foolishly and pridefully cling to, makes me hang my head in shame.
We do not acknowledge the fragility of the soul.
Instead, we test its endurance with all sorts of violence. We pillage it, we neglect it, we leave it out in the cold. We tear at it only in hopes of creating the seams that we claim so adamantly exist. We are harsh and we are short with each other. We lose our tempers and snarl. Our grudges have no end- and the hurt cycles onward. With each blow we have become blind and deaf and toothless and numb.
We have forgotten the soul and so we are tainted. This truth reveals itself to me now in the waves of painful memories whose horror I will not forget, although I’m certain I will have to be reminded of them down the road.
I realize now, Lxxxa, that I am writing to you because of the feeling you have left me with. It is the feeling of a gentle hand running through the hairs on the back of my head. It is the warm air between our bodies shortly after we embrace. It is the last touch of two hands slowly letting go of one another. You have not forgotten the soul. You are mindful of its fragility and tenderness while demonstrating its power.
A woman I adore once told me that when she thinks of revolution she only thinks of love.
One day a new form will take. What is here will scatter and transform. Our bodies will return to the soil and as they slowly lose resemblance of us, a new body will rise in its turn to experience what we have passed onto it- like a dying mother to a soon-to-be orphaned child.
And we will say:
I no longer recognize food
And so I am starving.
I no longer recognize water
And so I am thirsty.
I no longer recognize earth
And so I am homeless.
I only recognize Love
And so I am giving it to you.
It is all I can offer;
it is all you need from me.
And with this final act, we shall return to the darkness from which we came.
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But now, soft morning light traces my window with its fingertips. Darkness recedes again and, although it is still raining, the storm has passed. I have felt you in this hour and I hope to feel you with my own fingertips before too many more moments pass.
With love and humility,
Roman