Importance

i don't sleep well. the thoughts are all good but the brain won't settle. i wake up with current running through me. i do my laundry but forget to use soap, so do it again.

she asks me why love is so important.

because it cracks you open like a coconut. and inside; there's a tiny sun. a bush that burns and burns and burns but is never consumed. endless light and heat and awe to give and to have. because love is the only way to really understand that the world is bigger than you. that in love, you cease to be the important one.

and someone else writes me; saying she 'shudders in delight with possibility in having met me.' but we won't see each other anyway, 'cause my timing continues to suck. and sigur ros comes on the stereo and for a moment i'm back there, in bed in Amazonia with the Queen. telling her that we're going to sneak out together without saying goodbye, going to jump a boat to the marquesas, going to open a little dive shop and sleep beneath the palms. and be in love. i feel her lips on my fingers. i smell her hair on my pillow, faded from a year ago. i feel the storms rage on the sun inside me.

so i'll just be sad for a bit today, which is perfectly fine. not depressed, or howling, or hurt -- just sad. sad that there's love that needs to be boxed up and stored at the top of the closet like a winter coat. and happy that i appreciate this, too. that i feel okay being sad. allowed to listen to melancholy songs without worry.

because love is important enough to deal with the sorrow. and the fires inside, once lit, never go out. they'll keep you warm until the day you die and maybe longer still.