Do you remember that first spectacular moment when lightning strikes, and you are suddenly aware of the blood coursing through your body? When you are struck by the heat radiating from the most real creature in the world, separated from you by four welded pieces of iron and a porcelain coffee cup. When you look up and see a reflected burning in the eyes that look back at you. It’s a memory I have of you, and you, and you. Delicious, dangerous, divine, that first moment when you become aware of your own body as a tangible living breathing piece of flesh that has a mind all its own, and you realize that the world has conspired to bring you to this edge, leaving you teetering and fighting for breath and for control.
It doesn’t matter what comes afterwards, or if nothing comes of it, or it changes your life for the next four years. It’s only biology, chemistry, this physical spark that has nothing at all to do with the past or the future or common sense. It’s only your body firing up and ancient instincts awakened like they’ve been in others like you and unlike you, and it’s a heady rush to feel both prey to nature’s design and to feel all alone in that moment as if that desire flooding your senses is newly revealed to the world through you. You are an angel of fire and you are about to show us what it means to be alive.
To you, this could be about a meeting of minds, finding the security of a deep, calm emotional embrace that holds you afloat as you wade through the murkiness of everyday life, or the promise of an unchanging love. This moment is irrelevant in the long run. But in the short run, that spark, that feeling of heightened awareness, is more real than the dust you will walk home on.
In this moment, you talk to me about music, you talk to me about mathematics, you talk to me about the bird you once owned, you tell me about your addictions and vices and hopes and the dreams that slip out of your grasp when you open your eyes, and you understand that you have reached me. My eyes look into you and your hands are hot and your lips are alone and that ray of sunshine reflecting off my silvered hands binds us in silence.
This is quite possibly the best thing you’ve ever written.