There’s a light on in a distant room. The door is cracked just slightly, so that a sliver of Edison’s genius makes its way through. The light is on above the stove, illuminating overcooked, now cold this and thats. A light is on in the restroom, diffusing fluorescence as I douse in nearly scalding water. I thought once, that I couldn’t handle this. I’d crouch and cower at the liquid flames as they met my skin in a rather unpleasant greeting. I thought the two would never be acquaintances. I met the civilization of thin needles as they pitched tents on my arms, my fingertips. As unpleasant as they too were, they gave me life. Hard to believe, as I had yet to experience much of what life is at the time. Blindly being intravenously fed the duration of my existence, all the while unknowing of what it may hold. Clear liquid as transparent as my apparent future. Morphine, the medium of the artwork that is my life, painting brush strokes in sync with the electrocardiogram in my left peripheral. Dripping onto the blank canvas of my understanding, Pollock has his fun. An earthquake is emerging beneath pastel sheets. The meteorologist on channel Sabrina is predicting a storm, although it couldn’t possibly become any more cold here, I believed.
I didn’t think I’d be able to handle the heat. I didn’t think fire and I would ever meet in the middle, because I never thought I’d extend my arm even halfway across the flames. And then one day, I fell into a bucket of ice. Someone decided to drop me there, and upon landing, I awoke to a stark frigidness. No sock or scarf or hat could be the answer.
I’m no longer in ice. Granted, we fall in on occasion. But I am careful not to slip.
I appreciate the scalding oceans engulfing me.
Pinging and panging with each of our interactions, it says:
“I am your friend.
I love you.
I will not defy you.
I will comfort you.
I am not ice.”
SABMANSHAR 