                                                                  #
 anada   "Kiss"                                                   #          
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 21                        X-tabai   #    .#  ## #  #    .#  #   .#  #    .# 
 dec                                  *###  * #   *  *###  * *###  *  *###  *
 2000 .+#################################################################.net

        The rain was an ages-old hatred, grudge of the clouds unleashed upon
 the helpless earth.  I was in his arms when the lightning camera-flashed and
 the thunder roared up my spine like a harsh imperative.  I clung to him
 harder until he looked at me, and I lost myself in the endless twists and
 turns of his eyes, rich dark coffee, sweetest soil pleading for cultivation.
 My cynicism shattered like spun glass, quickly and painlessly, into shards
 that could never be pieced back together.

        As the lightning sang and the thunder throbbed, as the rain weighed
 down upon the world, I kissed him for the first time.  Pasts were
 extinguished and futures were lit, prayers on an altar.  No dream was ever
 so sweet and perfect as this everlasting instant.  This was the meaning of
 life, the purpose of time and space, the end for which the teeming mass of
 starfire and planetblood dumbly sought as the earth emerged from chaos with
 bated breath.

        For this I would drop my weaving and stare through the window at my
 shining doom, soon to float on a transient river of beautiful sorrow.  For
 this I would give up my sanity and drown within the heady scent of flowers.
 For this I would find my way to the seventh circle of Hell, to stretch my
 gnarled and sighing limbs to the flaming sky until the end of eternity.

        I could craft a word for this moment, this only moment, but why?  Why
 try to snare a sunrise in a shoebox?  Because as painfully limiting as they
 are, words are the varnish for a silversweet memory.  I will know this
 feeling until I pass beyond myself, but words are the photographs that bring
 the past into focus.  Words are the release for emotions that would
 otherwise shake me into pieces of earthquake-small rubble.  Words are a
 desperate attempt to share my feelings with others, that they might
 experience some fragment of my life and be more complete for it.

        This particular piece of myself is so precious that I shudder to
 think of how I am polluting it with my callous hands, exposing it to the
 elements.  And yet if I did not try to hold it, to caress it with sensitive
 fingertips, I would not appreciate it as much as I do.  It is a long-buried
 treasure unearthed in Pompeii, a marvel that one must see, smell, touch to
 be able to fully understand and adore.  And oh, I adore it.  With every tiny
 particle of my existence I adore it.

        I hope that someday you will find something so precious as this.  I
 hope you will think of me, and remember, and understand.

        And smile.

 .+##########################################################################

 anada241 by X-tabai                                                 (c) 2000
 ###################################################################anada.net
