and Pearls

Walk toward the sunrise, a voice inside my head said. Put one foot in front of the other. For a few minutes, I was convinced it was impossible. The Monday night bars were closing, except the little cave from which I stumbled, leaving a half-drunk glass and a row of snickering faces. It seemed an exit in the nick of time, but I threw up my entire evening when I got home, anyways.

Tuesday morning sunshine made my skin dissolve, tremble like heat waves on Texas roads, and entering my boss's office took all my strength. We have a position for you, she says, and at once the walls are swimming again, the rows of neatly stacked paper. But I think I'm going to New York, I say, and somehow I believe the words, now. The job offers beckon, the building of a future arises around me, how hard it is to walk away.

How much more precious the gem for which you do.