I relapsed today. Not in a drug way!

No!

Stop— it’s more complicated than that.

It’s okay, I’m fine,

I mean; why wouldn’t I be?


Life goes on, I go on.

I mean, we all go on, don’t we? But I’m back here,

was up there, and now I’m back here. Silly, foolish, here.

It should be easy, It feels like it’s easy, Until...

Hello beginning!

The beginning welcomes me, she pats my back with a firm aged hand and says,

“good to see you, I’m proud you tried,”

I did. Atleast there’s that, I tried,
I succumbed: but I did try. and now, I’m back. Life goes on. It persists. It does not wait. Does not linger or crawl. It walks, quick, broad strides. Patent leather shoes tap tap tapping on echoey floors, An avid, heedless stride. Only picking up pace.

a blasé parent watching an ill-tempered toddler,
pouting and stomping just to be heard,

No, life does not mind one bit where I am.

Where you are,

We are,

That’s easier to think about, we are. It is we right? You read this, and I write it, that’s two,

Me and you,

You and I.

Separated by space but together in words, In meaning, In soul.

If in-yun is real you and I must be,

looped,

connecting over lifetimes,

over cosmos,

in another universe I the reader and you the writer,
I the painter, you the oh so cruel art critic,
You the singer and I the adoring fan, clapping and hollering,

Or perhaps nothing at all,

Brushed past one another in the street, I wagged my hands in annoyance at being bumped into and you rolled your eyes,

Cruel fate.


You and I, tied together in this moment, At the beginning. Thank you beginning, Warm spring breeze, blossoming tulips.

Dandelions!

Oh, dandelions!

Blowing for a wish,

Seeds, dancing in the wind, I land somewhere, grow and someone comes along and blows me in another direction, I tumble through the wind, I land, I grow and I find myself back at the beginning.

Perhaps, once, we grew together?

Roots entwined, in a bustling park, picked by a wandering little girl, whisked away on the breath of childlike wonder, she puffed you away from me or I away from you.

“Goodbye!” I sang in the wind as you shimmied in the breeze, Flowing apart, yet, always returning to the earth, sharing the same sun and water, same death and famine,

Entwined,

“Thank you for growing beside me!”

And that is enough, to have grown side by side, said hello and goodbye, to have basked in the radiant sun together, roots weaved.

Ah.

I’m sorry, beginning.

I didn’t mean to talk your ear off.

I’ll get going now,

Forward a bit, Just down the road, A couple beats later, Like the jaws theme, slow and getting faster. Faster!

I’ll probably be back.

Quiet.

A pause.

I shift anxiously on my feet, My leaves droop a bit.

“You’ll return.” The beginning breathed, her soft, celestial, touch sheltering, encompassing. “No one does ever truly leave, not quite.“

I glower, a petulant, pouting child who hasn’t gotten their way. Who has to do something they’re afraid of.

Something new.

Experimental.

Like facing down some awful, cosmic, flame breathing leviathan, Imagination running wild, Divine feminine. Beginning. Changing. Cycling. She smiles earnestly, her endless star flecked eyes, Weaving together strands of silk, Sericulture and thread extraction, growth and decay, an old woman crocheting in the waiting room.

“And that’s okay.” She says softly. Rubbing your back like a doting matriarch, nudging you along. “Tell me what you learn.” she entreats as she thrusts you away, fear encompassing.

Off that cliff!

Out those doors!

Into that abyss!

Your panic-stricken animal heart bellows and flails, grasps for the known with honed claws, tearing and tearing until eventually it destroys, slamming into hard ground, endeavoring despite the ache.

But, you made it further.

Despite the cuts,

progressed,

learned,

Mended,

Your fullness increased.

Offering a warm hug, a kind-hearted hello to the beginning, to life, connection, a smile and a genuine compliment,

A laugh,

A wink,

silk worms wiggling side by side, burrowing in fertile soil, enjoying the brief time they are afforded, A vine climbing a tree, yearning for holy sunlight, blades of grass, roots tangled together,

And then, we begin again