closer

I am the burned child of a broken door and squeaking steps. Some times last forever, some times are an instant, some times are frozen and ready when they come, they bring in a vast ether of inertia, and stand around looking like perfection in dry ice.

I never had a hand to hold in any of these times, not for more than a minute, and now that its offered, I dunno what to do. I stared at it suspiciously for a year, it didn’t go away. I shook it like a leaf in a tornado, until its fingers trembled, and curled and withered. But the hand stayed.

No one knows the lessons that teach us how to hold hands right when we dance. All we know is that it takes two to tango. Sometime, long long ago, I was simple, continuous and demanding, no frozen time to live quietly in, no stillness, no fear, no need. Now after life lobbed me a few bombs, no matter what I do, I have the escape route figured, down to money, a map, a torch, food and my favorite books.

The scoffers in my head told me to stop walking backwards and just take the hand. They don’t understand, I don’t need a hand. I want it too much. The storm is nothing, I love the storm, I am good at screaming and dancing in the storm, did it all my life, but now that the frozen picture postcard is held out, carefully at the corners by an irritatingly persistent hand, I want to rest.

To stop creating storms to dance in, to curl up behind the broken door and die peacefully. But I know new storms will keep coming. In great waves dragged around by the moon. I know it is my destiny to stand in the frontlines and fight, that I can never truly rest until I die. I know that it doesn’t change with a hand, sometimes drowning, sometimes strong.

Trick is to stop escaping just because I can. To weather imaginary storms and dry ice. To recognize where lies freedom, which bars of this song are prison, those two change, interchange every minute. To accept the dance is worth everything