You Were Alight
You were a light as I held you; you were a star
burning and glowing and giving off so
innumerably many light particles
a thousand billion of them danced on the head of a pin
every second; while I knew for a fact that only
nine billion angels could be accomodated on such a space.
And even after you were gone - for light exists
to succumb to darkness - I still had your
afterimage, imprinted on my eye so no matter
which way I turned, I saw you.
And even when your afterimage wandered out
of my field of vision, I had the darkness
left over, for darkness exists to be broken by light.
And then I remembered what my science teacher
said once - that there's no such thing as darkness,
there is only the absence of light, that
darkness couldn't be created, light could only
be taken away;
and I listened as he spoke with a reverence
in his voice, and I knew science was its own
religion - everyone believed in something
whether they liked to think so or not.
So, I thought now, would it not be
that there was no such thing as me,
there was only the absence of you?
And couldn't it also be that there was
no such thing as an individual being,
only the absence of everyone else?
And I remembered you standing in my doorway -
you were the center of the universe,
you thought clear skies were beautiful,
I thought clouded skies were beautiful,
and as you walked away I felt the universe
slanting and scraping and stuttering to adjust itself
and weather disasters were reported worldwide
and so were the most beautiful sunsets anyone
had ever seen,
and I clutched the doorway because I couldn't
feel the ground anymore -
I was floating as effortlessly as though I'd
been born to be a monk
and I thought of predestination and how
all the energy in the universe was fixed forever
at the beginning of everything;
and I thought of how similar believers and
astronomers and cloud-watchers all were -
raising their faces, pointing fingers to the sky;
and even though I had this, and I used to have you
the world liked entropy too much
and I knew I could not win.
burning and glowing and giving off so
innumerably many light particles
a thousand billion of them danced on the head of a pin
every second; while I knew for a fact that only
nine billion angels could be accomodated on such a space.
And even after you were gone - for light exists
to succumb to darkness - I still had your
afterimage, imprinted on my eye so no matter
which way I turned, I saw you.
And even when your afterimage wandered out
of my field of vision, I had the darkness
left over, for darkness exists to be broken by light.
And then I remembered what my science teacher
said once - that there's no such thing as darkness,
there is only the absence of light, that
darkness couldn't be created, light could only
be taken away;
and I listened as he spoke with a reverence
in his voice, and I knew science was its own
religion - everyone believed in something
whether they liked to think so or not.
So, I thought now, would it not be
that there was no such thing as me,
there was only the absence of you?
And couldn't it also be that there was
no such thing as an individual being,
only the absence of everyone else?
And I remembered you standing in my doorway -
you were the center of the universe,
you thought clear skies were beautiful,
I thought clouded skies were beautiful,
and as you walked away I felt the universe
slanting and scraping and stuttering to adjust itself
and weather disasters were reported worldwide
and so were the most beautiful sunsets anyone
had ever seen,
and I clutched the doorway because I couldn't
feel the ground anymore -
I was floating as effortlessly as though I'd
been born to be a monk
and I thought of predestination and how
all the energy in the universe was fixed forever
at the beginning of everything;
and I thought of how similar believers and
astronomers and cloud-watchers all were -
raising their faces, pointing fingers to the sky;
and even though I had this, and I used to have you
the world liked entropy too much
and I knew I could not win.