Ascend

The forest throbs with unseen movement: darting shadows disappearing in the canopy above, the light rustling of leaves as the wind gently kisses the trees, the absence of light as the moon struggles to touch the underbrush… or perhaps all of this is a figment of his heightened senses. His veins burn as the drug works its way up his arm into his heart... into his brain, jumpstarting the dead ganglions and dormant nerve clusters, coaxing the visions and memories to the surface, and then systematically erasing them, sponging away a lost world of regret and loss.

He is reawakened. He is the night.

I am the night

At last at last we are one. As we reach out to each other, bathed in sweat, struggling to catch our breath. We are lost in the moment, so surreal and new… as though we have been reborn.

He quietly shakes his head, a pang of regret and disbelief, as he contemplates the parting words the shaman spoke through from behind a thick veil of smoke in a black, thatched hut as the rain drummed and thumped outside. Words cutting through the dry stillness like venom in blood. Ancient words spoken in a lost tongue last heard in Eden – or perhaps in the whisperings of King Nimrod as he dreamed of a colossal tower spiraling into heaven. Incomprehensible words, but at the same time lucent and crystal clear as a mountain spring.

He arrived to this jungle seeking redemption - either sanctification in death or the purgatory of rebirth - the burden and curse of eternal life. He came prepared. This biblical tree he sought without fear fully vested to open this long-forgotten Pandora ’s Box and unleash hope upon a spiteful world. He knew the tale as he knew each wrinkle on his face or gray hair in his head. A blur of memories, an eternity of preparation - before he ascended the broken trail up into the misty highlands, he would sit around the crackling fire with rapt attention listening to the natives each give their own version, their own generational testimonial, of “the myth” with twinkling eyes and well rehearsed gestures. He would quietly listen, thoughtfully nod, and quickly jot precise notes into his old leather-bound book.

He came prepared…. An eternity of preparation.

As I am now prepared.

Prepared to finally face a future without “her.” I am reborn and you were the catalyst. And you are the drug that systematically erases my world of pain and loss.

Cyclic

Despite our brief history of ups and downs, trials and tribulations, we continue to come back to one another. We were both betrayed by someone close, we have both dealt with loss, subjugated to death, resigned to a life of solitude and distrust. We have so much in common it is truly frightening. Yes, we continue to come back to one another and we always manage to pull away, a perpetual sad song which harkens me to a night long ago listening to black waves crash on a desolate beach.

I have now met your mother and your father and your brother and your sisters. I am the only man you have ever brought around your son… and you are the only woman who has been around mine. One dreamy surreal night we professed our love for one another. We confessed we have always wanted to be with one another, even when we were both trapped in our doomed relationships, we would find ourselves thinking about the other and what they were doing at that moment. There was always that glimmer of hope. There was always that fleeting fantasy we would both obsessively toy with in our heads over and over like an unsolvable rubik’s cube while we went about our daily lives – the elusive “what if?”

And now we are both free. Yet there is hesitation. We are free to let go and lose ourselves in one another and escape this horrible fucking place and we cannot, we are frozen with fear, emasculated by mistrust. We have both erected walls. Impenetrable barriers. Yet little do we know these barriers could crumble away like a heap of dry leaves would we allow them to.

We are unable to just. Let. Go.

And here I am, a bottle of whiskey in hand, dousing these flames and dumbing this pain. And you have told me you drink alone as well after you put your little one to bed.

We want each other so badly we can both taste it in our mouths like rotten pennies. We have both imagined the possibilities. We are each other’s saviors. We are each other’s Messiahs. And perhaps… just maybe… we are each other’s soul mates.

But we will never know will we?

So I pull another drink from this bottle and listen to the ringing nothingness I have chosen to shroud myself in.

her

I inhale a sharp puff of the cigarette, hold it in as I feel it softly tickle the inside of my lungs with delicate feathery fingers, then I exhale through my nose two long dragon streams of white smoke. We both stare across the parking lot at some construction. We watch the workers idle about – the slow, limitless progress of ants. It’s hot. The sun causes steam to sweat out of the cracked concrete. The day is long and arduous and I am thirsty and I can imagine drinking in this mirage as I was told to do when I was little, when we’d spend long days in Brooklyn by the river.

“So I had that dream again.” I tap my cigarette with a soft snap. An inch of ash tumbles off the end, gets caught in the breeze, and is carried away.

“The girl again.” You take a drag. “Yeah, who is this girl you keep dreaming about?”

I start to speak but I’m cut off by the rumble of an approaching dump truck. I wait to respond, using this distraction to pull a deep drag off my cigarette. I exhale.

“ I don’t know who she is at all but all I know is it is ‘she.’ She… has always been there for me and she always shall be. Together we will live together and after we die we will meet each other under the branches of Yaxche and together we will slowly ascend into Xibalba, a nebulous star on the fringe of destruction or creation or … nothing….”

You are silent, patiently waiting to see if I continue. You are motionless, except a nod of quiet agreement. You choose your words, mindful not to hurt me.

“ Your story continues and it continues to break my heart. I wish there was something I could do to kill this pain… I wish there was something you’d be willing to take. You carry this burden - and you continue to choose such a difficult path and it…..”

I cut you off mid-sentence, the slightest hint of urgency and defiance in my voice.

"If I take another path then we will never find each other! Do you understand that? And – and I cannot allow that to happen by any costs or I will die.... I will fucking die.”

You hand me the soft pack. “We have time, let’s smoke another.”

beginning of an end

She looks up at me with blue eyes, so brilliantly striking, and with unflinching certainty in her voice tells me she can trust me. She tells me she can be “herself” around me and that I bring out the best things in her as the sun gently coerces the flowers from the ground or a butterfly from a cocoon. She is beautiful, and clever, and in another world… and I have always said this about her… we would be soul-mates.

I kiss her lips and close my eyes and my thoughts inevitably wander to another bed to another place in someone else’s embrace but this bittersweet memory is corrupted - tarnished by plodding, merciless time. Crackling static and shadowy flashes projected on a crumbling wall which rests at the edge of the world and….

I no longer hear the whispers.

It is silent in my world. I am numb..

I told her recently that “I am incapable of love” and it is the truth. The past, which I once wore like rusty armor… the past, which brought me solace, which I wrapped around quivering shoulders like an old blanket… is now, and perhaps indefinitely…. the past. I am gebbeth. I wander the world with a lovely smile and dead eyes.

I kiss her lips and feel nothing but dry uncomfortable friction - like rock rubbing metal. Although outwardly we look so happy and perfect together – so beautiful and perfect. And they see my smile. Perhaps a glint in my eye. I am an illusionist pulling off a magnificent trick, playing to their hopes and dreams, and what people do not see is the aged, ghastly painting I keep stored away – a painting of me dying day by day – and every breath I take I add a stroke of black, red or gray.

Tears and rain as I look to the sky and I have reached a point in my life where all I can do is simply…. laugh.