I close my eyes— sleep, awake, threshold, rupture, flight
a door unhinges inside my mind,
splitting wide to the infinite howl of the cosmos.
The dark swallows me whole,
Yet I walk silent through the nothing, a shadow without weight,
stardust in my mouth, my veins glass rivers humming with echoes,
feet bleeding across the abyss,
through infinity, past the breath of collapsing stars.
"Love!" I call, voice shattered into echoes.
"Love, where are you?"
"Do you not know my voice?"
"Do you not recognize my face?"
"Come to me—consume me—fill me whole"
"Save me from myself!"
"Fill me that I may feel again!"
The silence trembles—quivers—writhes.
A pause deep enough to drown in.
The stars blink but do not speak.
I stand waiting.
Breathless. Ageless.
Quietly searching for something real.
I turn to the trees, the aching roots,
falling leaves spiraling like forgotten names,
the blossom of spring,
petals folding inward, whispering secrets only the wind understands.
I look to the distance
the mountains, cracked open with time, bleeding slow rivers of silver.
With great haste I ask,
"Do you know love?" I beg you.
"Tell me where?"
"Show me the path so I may stumble and fall but find my way!"
Nature smiles—a slow, knowing smile, carved in stone
but does not answer.
Desperate to feel again,
I wade into the sea, let the salt carve into me.
My heart drifts upon the waves,
a fragile thing, a paper boat with torn sails.
With a thunderous call to the horizon, I shout:
"Waves, bring love to my door!" I beg you.
But the waves only come and go, come and go, come and go
dragging time in their hands, whispering riddles that dissolve before I can grasp them.
Bearing sound
but no word that falls upon my grace,
leaving nothing but emptiness in the sand.
The echoes of silence fall upon me once more.
Night after night, I untether from my skin,
leaving my body like an abandoned house,
walking the plains of the universe,
searching, calling, begging for something real.
A ghost slipping between dimensions.
A traveler in far-off lands.
A lonely wanderer beneath the unblinking eye of eternity.
I run through comets, wade through nebulae,
stars burst behind my ribs,
galaxies unravel beneath my fingertips.
I stare into the cosmos,
my hands cupped like a beggar’s bowl,
aching, pleading
empty,
lost.
Until one night—the universe listens.
It hears my calls, my somber songs, my whispered prayers.
It splits its sky-wide mouth and speaks,
the words I've so longed to hear:
"You seek love?"
I look up at the heavens, at the endless sky.
"I wish for nothing more!" I cry.
"I want to be whole again!"
And in an instant, I am home.
Bare feet on the floor.
Shaking hands on the **** of my bedroom door.
Knowing where I am
but not knowing why.
"Open it," the voice says.
I do.
I run through, heart caving in, a million thoughts burning,
only to find myself.
Standing there.
Alone.
Staring back.
"Is this a cruel joke?" I scream at the stars.
"I'm right back where I started!"
The universe laughs.
Soft. Knowing. Unyielding. Endless.
"Did you not ask to find love so you could feel whole once more?" it says.
I reply in haste,
"Indeed—but it's only me here! I search for love to complete me!"
The universe laughs again—louder now, like rolling thunder.
"If you wish to be whole," it whispers,
"love yourself first."
"No one will make you complete but you."
"Love begins with one."
"With 'I'—not with another."
I wake, drenched in sweat, heart raw and open, confused,
the universe’s voice still clawing my memories, drowning my thoughts.
Enlightenment.
A truth.
A lesson.
A revelation.
Wisdom
"Love yourself."
"Be whole."
"Then love will come."
And I
I sit in the quiet of my room,
Alone.
But not empty.
Breathing in the lesson,
like it is the first air I have ever known.
The truth.
The answer.
The key.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
March 2025
Dreaming to find love
All rights reserved
