There used to be a snag.
It was in the chest and like a ponytail
caught
in a slammed car door or like a sharp
inhale from the unexpected papercut
(is there such a thing as an expected papercut?),
it happened before eyelids even peeled back over the weird grape eyeballs jammed in our heads. Quick. Tugging. Tightening.
Have you ever held your breath for too long underwater?
Like just a couple seconds past your little lungs’ limits?
But you’re way down under the surface and it’s so fucking difficult to have a proper sense of if you’ll make it back to air and you imagine everyone saying that drowning would be such a horrible way to go, a pretty awful way to enter final rest and the burn is so deep and are you actually swimming up or are you accidentally swimming down? And when you finally reach the surface you’re convinced maybe it’s impenetrable saran wrap?
Or have you ever done that thing where you trip over your own sneaker and you visualize your body flailing upside down bonk, bonk, bonk down the stairs? But you don’t bonk, so you laugh really hard at the pure death spiral you journeyed on. (No? Just me doing this constant rabbit hole into all the literal worst possible case scenario life could offer you?)
All of that. All of that tension. All of that apprehension. A fine layer of panic covering everything in sight, but when you run your finger along it, the dust won’t budge.
And then
The freeing of the hair in the door.
The reaching the surface for the big, calm birthing breath.
The steady of the handrail.
The quiet awakening in the coziest sheets after a night of deep sleep following eternal insomnia. Enjoying something for the first time three decades into living, even the most mundane human tasks… that’s what it is.
A freeing of tightly wound, societal yarn. A smoothing. A soothing.
An untangling of expectations, norms, oppressions, shame, fear.
And after recovering from the vertigo of unwinding the delicate spool,
a golden rod is found in your central core.
It’s throbbing a dull glow,
an ember that’s been perseveringly feeding itself oxygen without your knowing.
(good job, little glow)
But you’re here now.
You’re here, your whole you.
Feeding the ember, building a fire resilient to the sea of Topo Chico you’re a’gulping.
Flames licking, warming at the foot, under covers.
Uncovering limbs, uncovering wounds, uncovering hopes.
Bundling up heartbeats.
Tucking in quiet dreams, little burritos.
Falling deeper and deeper, sinking into yourself and the mattress she bought you so you wouldn’t sleep too hot.
Two spoons.
Two dogs.
One little fire.
One big bed.
Photo by Bruno Ramos Lara on Unsplash
