9.18.19

I told my father today that my
tunnel does not have a light at the 
end of it. It has no illuminated end. 
It offers no focal point to measure 
distance by, to negate the lost
confusion that nests in my heart.
I don’t know where I am as I travel.
I told my father that my tunnel opens
up into more darkness. A different
kind of darkness, deep but not pitch
black, not hopeless, not blind. If I
were to tilt my head up, I would see
tiny hints of light, like tricks of the eye, 
blinking down at me as I blink up at
them. These pinprick holes in the dark
are what constitute my light. The sun
will never come back - it’s long and far 
behind me now. It will never shine warm
on my skin again, or blind my eyes, or
set my hair on fire on a summer afternoon.

But these new lights lie ahead of me & 
will shine into me - my skin might stay
cold in the dark, but my heart will be a 
warm furnace, burning from the inside
with a seed of new hope. They may be far
away from me and seem small from the
ground, but they are innumerable - so
many ways to be content in the dark, so
many things to keep dreaming about.
I may exist, after my tunnel, like a shadow -
black & sooty & travel-weary, grieving the
life stretched behind me & fearful of the one
stretched before me - but the stars will 
shine on me gently, softly, kindly, with
compassion. i will be illuminated as a 
beautiful thing out of a place of ugliness.

- under the starlight, even shadows look holy