A Beginning

I haven’t seen the sunrise in a long time.

Two years, to be exact. My window faces east, so you’d think that in the mornings, I’d at least open my blinds to let the light in. But I don’t. I haven’t. There’s work to get to, but more than that, it’s the sudden shift from deep night to dawn that frightens me. God claws at the darkness, so that streaks of untapped light show, gold and white and violet all at once. An old lover, who believed he was a poet (but was not), liked to compare it to dragon’s blood, dripping across the sky. Before our eyes are fully open, the sun’s already come up, ready to pillage what night has tried to keep secret, safe. Dew, sparkling on leaves and sleeping butterflies, disappear. Cars pull out of driveways, wives kiss their husbands goodbye (Have a good day at work, dear), boys and girls head off to school, someone somewhere struggles to get out of bed, another heart heals, and life, like everything else, goes on. Prometheus would be proud.

I hate mornings: if I had my way, we’d all start work under the cover of night. Darkness can be more merciful than sunlight – it yields to grief or desire (is there a difference?) more easily, allowing us to forget what we’d rather not face during the day. I’m no vampire, as I love the beach in summer as much as anyone, but when it’s raining outside and I know I’ve yet another pile of paperwork to get through at the office, I’d much rather burrow my head under my pillow and doze till noon.

Maybe it’s because I like to stay up till 3 or 4 in the morning, writing letters like these. Some of them I burn, hoping their ashes will scatter, my thoughts mingling with air, so they transcend emotion, becoming pure element. But this one, I’ve chosen to save: this reaches you whole, for you to do with it what you will.