Letters to The - #2

They say you are Peace, but you always are, and peace isn't always, at least not with me. Nobody knows peace until they first lose it and then find it again. Before, it's like air. It's nothing, until you need it.

The first peace I found was in someone’s arms. She loved me in my agony, and that was the first time I felt what peace feels like. It was only feelable because of the contrast. I hurt, and she made it better. For a long time I didn’t know how to feel peace without the contrast. Peace turned out to be an acquired taste, and for a long time any hint of its presence upset me, like day without night would be upsetting to any diurnal creature. Her arms were warm, often bare, and something about the outside of someone touching the outside of me felt complete. I’ve been throwing myself at touch ever since.

I try to touch you, too, to further the completeness. You are much harder, and flimsier, though. Bubbles burst at a harsh breath, but you won’t even let me feel fire, or lighting, or the bottom of the sea. Why do you keep the most magnificent parts to yourself? This hurts me. My soul keeps whining, “I want to know. I want to see. I want to feel.” I want all of it, even the parts that would kill me.

Trees are often an acceptable in-between. They last a while, they are both scratchy and warm, and they don’t need me, as you don’t need me. Trees, though, why do they get to sink so deeply into the earth? I’ve always found this to be truly unfair. I want to know the soil, to be buried up to my neck in the blanket of the world. You didn’t plant me, and you didn’t give me wings. You just gave me imagination barely sufficient enough to think of wanting to fly or grow roots. This hovering on the limbo of mantle and atmosphere nags at me. I am not yet settled in myself, and feet are at best a desolate kind of beauty.