welcome 2 the darkness
Welcome to the darkness,
where the only lights are glowing green exit signs above the doors.
I had anticipated a feeling of claustrophobia, but the darkness is a void. The newness of it all is stifling, or rather there is a feeling of uneasiness sweeping over the mass of bodies in the darkness as Droning sounds emanate from the computers on the stage.
Seeing is different from hearing or feeling, that much I know to be true.
Vaguely aware of being watched, vaguely aware of shapes moving around me. We are at a confluence between the individual and void. You have to make the choice to surrender now.
Dancing is certain surrender. Historically it is the only way to exorcise a demon. A proven remedy for melancholia.
In the darkness Violet imagines our bodies are stone fruit, we are blanched and peeled and dancing skinless. Skinless, not on drugs unless you count a pitcher of margaritas as drugs. The occasional reflection of blue light behind us. Some chud nervously checking their phone….
Recurring memories of the surveillance state, recurring memories of faint annoyances, emotions of desperation and embarrassment threaten to bubble to the surface.
The urge to leave them behind is stronger, swaying, knowing they will pass just as quickly as they came. The only thing louder than the thoughts is the music which is picking up speed now.
To keep up, I peel off my sweater and tie it around my waist, down the last of my tequila soda and put the empty plastic cup in my purse. Forgetting where my body is in space, colliding with other’s disparate limbs.
Nostalgia for something I never experienced. Nostalgia for a word that doesn’t exist. Melodic frequencies flow perfectly through those eighty minutes in darkness. And then it is over, the lights turn back on and we blink like deers in the headlights, like babies who have just been born, slightly worse for wear, slightly shell shocked. We have time travelled to the future.
In this future present the sun turns golden over the stretch of highway at an unreasonably early hour and I feel like an unwelcome stranger in body mind and spirit.
angry wind banging on the windows, ripping the leaves that the rain turned golden, red, orange and throwing them to the ground. nature’s chimp out.
open the door to the balcony to smoke a pre-roll that i bought even though i promised myself and god that i was done spending money on weed even if it’s cheap weed. i welcome the dark night of the soul, taking a deep breath and inhaling, holding it at the bottom, drinking in the darkness which was already inside of me. greet the wind, greet the super full moon in taurus. greet the owl . greet the three centipedes in the sunroom.
heard bagpipes in the park the other day at sunset. dragged my feet in concentric circles between the trees. bagpipes will play at my funeral. the trees are naked and dead and afraid like the centipedes, like me, like the dead bird that the kids poke with sticks at the easement after school. an autistic kid named the dead bird cookie.
i told them we can say hi to cookie and bye to cookie. but we cannot touch her.