The Trance, 3.13.06
I lay awake on my bed staring at the clock. It is the wee hours of the morning and though I am exhausted to my very core, sleep does not come to me. As I gaze, the only sound is that of the second hand as it slowly makes its way around the face of the old clock, the advancing of each moment passing into cemented history, forever sealed away, unchangable. For a time, I count the ticks, hoping perhaps that their constancy would somehow bore me to sleep. Instead, I find myself almost hypnotized by each movement. The ticking begins to slow as my thoughts focus on one moment when I was truly happy. The sound thunders louder and lounder in my ears... boom... boom... BOOM! until suddenly the clock stops and the world seems to freeze. My body remains in my dimmly lit room, motionless, yet my spirit is very much alive, as though it has somehow instantly translated outside of the influence of time.
The happiness of that one moment, the total ecstacy that I felt in its protection has somehow stopped time and I remain there. I am moving about its frozen scene, ghostlike, invisible even to my own eyes as my ominus memory plays out before me:
I am tired, and yet full of energy; I am bitter and afraid of life, yet there in your arms I have no fear or pain. You hold me tightly and tell me that you love me and, perhaps for the first time in my life, I know it is possible to be truly loved. I am looking in your eyes and seeing my entire future staring back at me. In my heart I am surrendering everything that I am and could ever hope to be to you. The dark, unforgiving walls that I have spent my entire life erecting high around me slowly begin to crumble and light floods every dusty corner of my heart that I have kept for myself, untouchable, out of reach, impenetrable. How raw I feel at this very moment! How completely vulnerable I am to you, as though I have laid wide my very soul as I have done for no one before!
Here in this world of timeless time my heart begins to heal from wounds that it has suffered in reality. I am enveloped in a sence of belonging -- finally belonging somewhere -- and I am resting securely there.
My loosed, cynical spirit quietly scrutinizes this still, beautiful scene, as though trying to discover some flaw, anything to discount the sheer perfection of this moment. Slowly it circles the two of us, yet frozen in place, causiously eying us this way and that. For a time it is speechless, its piercing eyes penetrating deeply into our very heart of hearts, searching for a foothold. A long while passes and at last a smile gently creeps across its face. Yes, this is indeed the way it was meant to be -- this is eternity for the two of us. A happily defeated sigh comes crashing through the sacred silence and its eyes widen in horror as the slow, steady sound of the old clock reappears. The scene wavers and begins to fade as reality sets in again. My desperate, panicing spirit looks for a way to remain in this secret, created reality, but must unwillingly return to meet my body inside the shackles of time.
As suddenly as time had ceased, so it now revives and I awake from my trance-like dream. My body still lays there on my bed. The time on the clock reads just one second later than when I left it, and yet my eyes look a hundred years older and a thousand times more exhausted. I am alone again and I shudder with cold as the warmth of that moment quickly slips away.
If I must suffer through a million more lonely daytimes to meet you again in my dreams, then suffer and wait I shall. Though I dread the sunshine filled days that keep me so far from you I will wait: wait for that moment when time again ceases and I am left to my memories -- my still, motionless memories -- and in your arms once again.
The happiness of that one moment, the total ecstacy that I felt in its protection has somehow stopped time and I remain there. I am moving about its frozen scene, ghostlike, invisible even to my own eyes as my ominus memory plays out before me:
I am tired, and yet full of energy; I am bitter and afraid of life, yet there in your arms I have no fear or pain. You hold me tightly and tell me that you love me and, perhaps for the first time in my life, I know it is possible to be truly loved. I am looking in your eyes and seeing my entire future staring back at me. In my heart I am surrendering everything that I am and could ever hope to be to you. The dark, unforgiving walls that I have spent my entire life erecting high around me slowly begin to crumble and light floods every dusty corner of my heart that I have kept for myself, untouchable, out of reach, impenetrable. How raw I feel at this very moment! How completely vulnerable I am to you, as though I have laid wide my very soul as I have done for no one before!
Here in this world of timeless time my heart begins to heal from wounds that it has suffered in reality. I am enveloped in a sence of belonging -- finally belonging somewhere -- and I am resting securely there.
My loosed, cynical spirit quietly scrutinizes this still, beautiful scene, as though trying to discover some flaw, anything to discount the sheer perfection of this moment. Slowly it circles the two of us, yet frozen in place, causiously eying us this way and that. For a time it is speechless, its piercing eyes penetrating deeply into our very heart of hearts, searching for a foothold. A long while passes and at last a smile gently creeps across its face. Yes, this is indeed the way it was meant to be -- this is eternity for the two of us. A happily defeated sigh comes crashing through the sacred silence and its eyes widen in horror as the slow, steady sound of the old clock reappears. The scene wavers and begins to fade as reality sets in again. My desperate, panicing spirit looks for a way to remain in this secret, created reality, but must unwillingly return to meet my body inside the shackles of time.
As suddenly as time had ceased, so it now revives and I awake from my trance-like dream. My body still lays there on my bed. The time on the clock reads just one second later than when I left it, and yet my eyes look a hundred years older and a thousand times more exhausted. I am alone again and I shudder with cold as the warmth of that moment quickly slips away.
If I must suffer through a million more lonely daytimes to meet you again in my dreams, then suffer and wait I shall. Though I dread the sunshine filled days that keep me so far from you I will wait: wait for that moment when time again ceases and I am left to my memories -- my still, motionless memories -- and in your arms once again.