It’s sadness. Perpetual sadness covered by layer upon layer of human experience. I hold her hand and I feel awakened, released back into the place where I don’t have to pretend any longer. I hold her hand and I feel the grief separate like a serpents skin caught on the desert rock. The heat is incredible and the lightness permeates the tragedy that has played out on the stage of our emotions. Some seem to rise into the clouds, their feet never dragging, their ship never rocking, a chosen delusion and detachment from the hum deep within. I know one day they will fall further down, down to where our spirits all lay. A kite on a windless day. She releases my hand and there I am, where I always was. This road leads to the purple mountain covered in snow and that is where I must go to meet with myself. It’s always only myself, the creatures that follow me from the edge of the forest with hands slender and soft, always fall back to where they came eventually. Leaving my shadow long and lonesome. So I walk, as I have always walked. To see how far I get before my eyes start to dance around the landscape, searching for a charming beast to call my own for what feels like only a heartbeats worth of time. To slow my stride to a saunter, as we trade memories between the decay of day into night and the howling birth of night into day, pretending it will all last forever.