Nearly as I can reckon

Time is short and all of the work that lies in front of me, papers and videos and planning flats, things I like.  And there are obligations to follow through and I like those too because I love the people involved. And I love the heat of this place when it explodes and I don't know why this is not a volcano. It should be a volcano. And on a night like this when my bones are crackling with marrow that flows but will not crack, there are a hundred unfinished stories of desire spread out on my bed, and nothing has to happen to someone who is so in between. 

In the hostel of liminal travelers, we hardly make eye contact, because we don't want anything impossible to start, because those are the very things that brought us here in the first place.  But when we do connect through the eye, and that silver thread (or gold, it might be gilt, I don't remember), we tell ourselves, we tell each other, no, we're doing things different this time, we decided for ourselves this time we would be different.  And there would be no exceptions. 

So I ask myself why, when it's not even midnight, or it's that time of the morning when the cups and papers are piling themselves on us and getting us heavy enough to leave, before it gets any heavier, I ask myself why I am lighting a yellow candle and asking Her to pay special attention to This One, to bring her closer, because I want to find out things before I have to leave.  

And I tell myself it's just because she reminded me of someone I lost, and I'm just visiting another ghost again, and this is nothing different or new, when I really suspect that this is not the same thing at all.  Despite so much glitter turning out to be nothing more than glitter, there's a suspicion this might not be that, just because it's something I don't want right now.  

The night is not too long, and the heat of the day does not make me shiver later in the dark, because I don't sleep, because I am humbled before these tasks at hand, and there is just enough time, but nothing extra.  So I ask myself why I am asking the manager for an extra pillow, an extra towel, and sleep lightly just in case she comes in with the sea monsters when they enter in between the cracks of one day and the next. 

And I keep thinking about these openings in liminal spaces, the pupil that opens wider when you see someone you think you might want to love, and that space between the muscles on the chest, when the sweat of the day is something you wished did not belong to only you.  And I keep saying things to myself, you, you, you, and wonder if you might be listening, listening to this small and futile prayer, the one that says, I'm not ready for something like this, but tonight there is room for you in between all these spaces.