Looking Into The Nameless

I knew then, through whispers and side-glances, as I know now, that I am different. That the compulsion to jump from fences stirred me even then, and I would run from the sofa, through a house full of cool tile, to the lush garden that awaited with green arms and promises I could never describe. And I would leap, throwing my body into trust I hadn’t the name for, into chambers I had yet to recognize. And I would land, spinning, on my head, smiling with the impact, alive with the hurt and dizzying reality of matter, and something else, something I have yet to place in a box and seal with a kiss.
I have used thousands of words, I have run around it in circles and created colorful stories that hint at its splendor, but I refuse to stare at it directly. I refuse to look it right in the eye and mark it forever with letters and obvious description. It is respect, colored by the sheer knowledge that I know nothing, that any word would fall a thousand miles short and cause bruising that could never heal. I have seen it spinning in blackness. I have poked the edges with a sharp stick and my prying mind and curious eyes that seek the details of all forms.
There is flesh, round and soft with pointed ends. There is darkness lit only by stars and the dreams of the dreaming. And I have walked through the tunnels of my mind and I have taken ships that led me to forgotten caves painted with orange and red.
I have looked, with my head bowed, and my body calm as a steady sea. I have looked. Into mirrors, into eyes that seem to look back with the same curious stare, my eyes, brown and almond shaped, alive with flecks of green I might soon forget.
It is all there, and as I know now, as I knew then, that this is different. Leaping from fences and rooftops, scouring the inner caves of ink and stinking rot, this is different. And I pull on thick boots and walk with my head bent, my arms open for others that might come running naked from the mouths of other caves.
And if they do, we will walk, through tunnels of brown and sooty black, and we will walk, through tunnels I have yet to touch and refuse to name.

The Mountaintop

She had been on the mountaintop since the early afternoon the previous day. She had watched the birds and the lone hawk that swept over her in circles again and again, as though he had something specific to communicate. She searched his feathers and form for a message, letting the tenuous sparks of insight fall to her like snowflakes.
The afternoon had stretched long and wide, opening its tunnel of curiosities as the sun arched across the sky. She walked the path of the day without fear of a setting sun, and soon, as she knew would happen, the light turned golden and then slowly drifted below the long mountain range in the distance. Her vision blurred and she opened her arms wide and lay back on the firm soil of the earth, letting blue twilight spill over her like the sweet arms of death.
Blue turned to crisp black and without light, her body quickly grew cold. She kept her eyes wide, letting the blackness and flickering stars roll and tumble over her with possibilities, letting it drag her mind into depths that daylight preferred to avoid.
There were demons and they laughed and giggled. There were animals with horns and a lilting flute somewhere in the distance.
The wind moved over her and a nearby howl danced with her fears. Dark time lasted for an eternity, just the slowly arching crescent moon marked the movement of the earth and her body’s place upon it.
Her body held onto the deep worry that came from childhood and her parents and the movies she had seen. Her mind clung to visions of chains and bumpy demons and the sounds of crying. She knew she held on to the light, thinking that it alone would ease her deepest fears.
Just as she clung to the daylight, she held on to the world, to the flowers and plants and dreams that she could see. As she looked, she saw the nightmares of her youth and the cold waiting chains of years within a sphere of words she had never asked for.
The long night opened its tunnel and she walked in, letting herself be filled with its chill and rich sounds of pain and mystery. And then there was a chamber without words. Here, she was truly scared. Here, she had no body, no role, no purpose. Here, she was nothing.
Then the nothing found its way back, it found the body, the fears, the worry. It found all that it ever was. But it brought back the memory of the chamber. Her eyes were wide once again, and she knew that to live in the light, she would have to learn to voyage in the dark.
She lay on the mountaintop as morning light spilled into the world of a newborn day, and she drank in the pale pink light, letting it come into her like the semen of the sun. She opened her arms wide, letting the day bathe her in its clarity.

Into the Chasm

My white horse stares with me into the abyss. I can see layers of crushed civilizations mixed with the silt sediment. The color of decaying bricks, once the structures of great buildings, now, mere dust in the great cycle. Nearly pulverized, their color leaches into the surrounding rocks, creating bloodstains on the silky gray stone. That is only the first layer of inner earth. The others are right beneath, pushing and vying for archaeological admiration. It is a hole that grows wider the deeper I look, like an inverted triangle, I stand near the apex, drooling into the widening expanse of colored darkness. I strain my eyes, but there is no bottom. The end I seek is not there.
The source, the beginning? No, just more.
More.
This I sense with every power in me. My horse knows it too, for I feel him shivering, not with cold or fright, but something less obvious. It disturbs our cells. Frightens our skeletal system. What stands before us goes on forever. Deeper and deeper, deeper still it goes. We can begin the voyage through its time, our time. We stand on the ledge, fearful. But the way back, the path we walked to stand at this ledge…that path is blurry. It grows with vines, snakes litter the way. I don’t know where it was, what we were…once, long ago.
Were we ever there?
We are only here, at the beginning of everything.
We are here, looking into the mouth that birthed us. Into the remains of all that ever was. Waves of red translucent air blast my face, like the hot exhaust from a race car. Is this fear? My heart beats steadily, but something inside is in turmoil. What is this? Am I supposed to see this? Should I be here, looking down into this? There was never a beginning, I can see that now. Diamonds leap from my pocket, anxious to stay behind. They depart, hoping to catch a fast wind back to the land of the known. The cities of now, clogged with their dirty air and pearly hands. I look up, this is not the edge of the chasm, for I am merely wedged on the side of a layer, looking into the channel that runs through all our lifetimes.
I look up. There is another, feeling the same moment of red and heat.
Wait… there are sparks of blue. Moving from the center of the chasm in a circle. Counterclockwise, the flecks of blue take a steady course, swirling from the center point outwards…towards me, towards all sides of the Great Hole. They are firm in their flight, as soon as one moves slightly from the center, another takes its place. The lights, no bigger than a small coin, have filled the void, a constantly darting swirl of tiny shimmers. The ones that finally reach the walls of rock and matter instantly burst on contact, a tiny spark followed by a moment of calm, replaced only by another electrical burst as another piece of blue makes contact with the people of stone.