It’s strange, really, how I find myself tangled in a relentless cycle of pause and play, of fast forward and rewind. So often I envision myself with my hands reached out in attempt to catch a moment in the air, to take hold of a feeling before its color dissolves into another collective memory. Emotions flutter anxiously between my fingers, like restless fireflies trapped inside glasses they cannot escape.
But I do not wish to steal their euphoria, only to preserve it.
They say I was born with a soul incapable of finding rest, possessing an interminable wanderlust that refused to dwindle. A blessing and a curse it was, the perpetual desire to hoard memories like expired love letters in the deepest trenches of my mind. I chased Love until my legs would give out beneath me, and even then I found myself crawling to graze its touch.
Pause, play, rewind.
A lethal dose of nostalgia. Each solitary moment dances to the tempo of my blood flow, the erratic heartbeats that remind me how alive I have become. I have taken them hostage.
Each ephemeral moment, possessing a life so fleeting and bittersweet. The mellifluous echo of my favorite song being shouted at the top of my lungs, the familiar scent of the first book that stole my breath away. The first rush of freedom, the bewildering taste of loss, the initial weight of a damaged heart.
Like fireflies, they emit an effervescent light that radiates through the darkest chasms of my mind. A focal point. A distraction. Something beautiful amidst the murkiness of tears and unrequited love.
And I see their light shining through my fingertips, illuminating the gaps where nothing but absence exists, and I let go. They are free, an autonomous ray of light that floats through the spaces where I once felt so alone.
But I am not alone anymore, I am never alone, because I’ve created something permanent. A home in the middle of nowhere. A shelter for the explanations I could never bring myself to elaborate upon. A dazzling luminescence that will never die out.
We are everlasting.