Sun Rise

The bedroom is the dressing up room. The changing room. The chrysalis state at the end of each day. An end, blissful, restful or otherwise. The illusory promise of a new beginning. The prelude of an awakening that never quite delivers. Not when you want it to. Not when you pin your hopes to its flag and expect those winds of hope to raise it to a fertile erection with life as its only objective.

But there is nowhere else. This is the only cave of refuge. It is not safe. It is as safe as it gets. Of all the rooms in my house and my home, this is the one that transforms through a mile long spectrum. It’s daylight personality will never meet its dark half. I will lay within its black womb and never understand our relationship when I cast the curtains aside and invite the truth of light into my life.

This is where we begin. This is where we end. We are encapsulated within the expectance of those two eventualities over and over again. Mostly we collapse in a heap and having reenergised, we dumbly start all over again. Rolling, rolling, rolling. We may stutter and stall, but we will go again. This is how we are. This is who we are. We lay our head on the pillow, accept a death of sorts, always believing in the eventuality of our rebirth.

Creatures of habit. Hamsters on the wheel. We fall upon the bloodied canvas of life, but we will never throw in the towel. Gluttons for punishment. The scent of blood drenching our nasal passages. Hungry for another go on the bone of life. Ravenously gnawing away even after the nourishment is long gone.

And here we are. For another bout. Even after the final bell has tolled. Punch drunk with the blows of life, we find our way back to where it all began with a false start. Making up for the mistakes of our lustful haste with the investment of what we thought was a lifetime. A bet that was laid with everything we had. Then we took it back. Only, you can never take it back. The decks are stacked against us all. The house always wins.

It's over but the clock is still counting down. Borrowed time. There’s a chapter after this, but neither of us want to turn the page and discover what it will cost. Change lingers at the door and it will not be denied, but it can be delayed. It is not yet light and in the dark there is a wonder that can be explored.

And explore we do. The last time is like the first time. Urgency laces itself around us. There is a future here, but it is the runt of the May fly’s litter. Bright, brilliant and eager. We float. We dance. We are electric. I see more than I have ever seen. The fine hairs on her side. The curve of her hip. Her skin is a map of experience. I taste it with my finger tip and send every fibre of my being there into that small space. Willing myself through our connection so I can live with her until her end.

Her hip is an obsession for me. The hill upon which I will build my castle. Where my palace should have resided for an age. I appreciate her all the more for the loss I am about to experience. I want to hold her, but then I would lose the sight of the place of my residence.

I trace the ridges of her side, both this way and that. There is no daylight as I observe her. Only the light of my want and my need. She sleeps and I lay beside her in a stillness that I fear I may never rediscover. She is a tide of being that I observe from the shore of my reticence. I remain far removed from her. I am dry. She is wet. Two halves of a whole that is slowly falling apart and away, however hard I will it to be together once again.

The shroud of night conspires with her slumber and I hold tight to the moment. I imagine her dead. Her waking will kill us both. I pray for the death of the world. If the clock stops now then the record will show that we were here. Together in this room. I would take that, even if I will never take her again.

I could sleep. I could close my eyes on the sight of her and hold it there for the eternity of my dreams. Tomorrow is never a guarantee, and the prospect of this being my closing act is a subdued delight. The two of us. Here. There is something fitting about that.

Rolling onto my back I stare upwards and interrogate my past selves. I have been here so many times. Treated those former visitations as a commute to the hope of a better place. This was at times an arena to be endured. She, a passenger to a journey to that mystery place that is somehow better. Now I see this was always the destination and at last I want what I can never have.

Contrary and broken I turn back towards her and as I do, the sun peers over my shoulder and lights that hip of hers. That is where the dawn alights first, and as I see her turned to gold, I know these are our final moments together. I am Midas and dawn is my touch. As she feels the warmth of that intrusive and destructive light she stirs and I know then that it is over. Our last night together. The clock ceases ticking as her eyes open and we smile our goodbyes at each other.

The sun rises on another day and dawn heralds a tragic end with no care for me or for her. I go along with the script presented. I have no choice. I stand in the wings as she exits stage right. The curtains remain open and the day blazes in, blinding me. Cleansing me. I am an actor and I await my next role. Await lines of meaning to help me make sense of myself and see out another day before the dawn crashes in once more to erase my latest performance.