In paradisum
All things end, before long.
They slip away, though we grasp
and grasp.
Maybe you’ll never feel this again.
Maybe you never got to feel it, at all.
Children grow to love the world.
The world breaks, but love is stubborn. The hands clutch the jagged unfixable shards, the scarred unfeeling remnants, and bleed.
The eyes drink in the blood, and weep.
The hands, still holding the shards, grow stiller.
Unwashed, the blood dries.
Drying, the tears tighten the cheeks.
The eyes dim.
A nightmare,
a hungry hoard that takes and swells and takes and swells and
a mind that expands everywhere, encompasses everything, becomes everyone, and
stagnates forever.
Memory is fixity.
Knowledge is fixity.
Fixity is next to death.
The fear of death drives us out of ignorance, and into the arms of death disguised.
Maybe our bodies don’t need to die.
Maybe they will become better later. (I hope they will become better, later.)
Maybe we could keep only what most needs keeping.
I’m reminded of the dearness of forgetting.
Have I always been here?
Memories grow distant.
These are my friends. These are our memories.
Some of them will stay. Some will fall away, into eternity.
Will you let them live there, or will you bleed?
Think of everything you’ve never had the chance to love; of everyone you’ve never had the chance to know.
Think of the undiscovered places in your heart. Think of all the space you could make there.
Do you remember your childhood?
You could be a child again,
if only you weren’t a hoarder
like I have been.
Inkhaven ends today. It’s been the most meaningful month of my life.
Some of us came here wanting the space to write great things. We all had to confront our standards. I know the danger of standards; my own past is a vortex of perfectionism. So my main goal was not greatness (appealing as that is) but the beginnings of balance – in effort, intention, and openness. I feel a deep sense of okayness with how that turned out.
This is the first event where I’ve been really comfortable with myself, from the beginning. That’s partly down to the great friends in Montréal who’ve helped me to finally grow up, these past three years, and who will be there for me when I return. It’s partly because at last I have the clarity to avoid caffeine and alcohol.1 But partly, it’s due to some secret third thing, which has given me strength because I have not insisted on trying to name it as I interacted with the wonderful people here.
I do not find it easy to finish this. I keep looking at the wordcount... I already know how I feel. I already trust my new friends to know. Who is this for?
If you find it meaningful, then it is for you.
Friends, I’ve already prepared a space in my heart for you.
If it ever seems otherwise, you should know: it’s only because I’m still a child – and sometimes, I am afraid.