Lifeline

Monday afternoon, you return to the bar that never leaves you completely, find the corner comfortably empty. The bartender har turned up the light just over your table, he knows how you like to read and put little scribbles in your notebook. You hear him tell a patron about their new puppy, how it sleeps in the bed with them. You read old journals, see a life made up of equal parts darkness and words. Everything else is irrelevant. Everything else is minutiae, little pebbles of life, it it not what you will remember. You remember words, and you remember darkness. 

Spring arrives along the river, despite the weight in your chest. Sunlight beams on the park, daffodils growing before your eyes, little popcorn buds on the flowering trees aching for their turn to explode, you stop and stare at them. Wonder at the world. Was it always like this to emerge? It's been so long since you came out of wherever it is you've been spending your years. The windows look dirty, you hadn't seen. Your whole burrow is dirty, you haven't opened your eyes properly since you don't know when. When you tell her you've forgotten what it feels like to long for anything at all she calls it a symtom, not a sign that this is all you can expect out of life. When you tell her you don't remember what joy feels like in your chest, she tells you there's a name for that. 

But spring arrives along the river, sunshine digs its way into even the darkest burrow, leaves no stone unturned, doesn't care about the diagnoses on your chart. It carries on unperturbed, nudges you against your will, like a puppy who will not give up trying to sleep in the bed with you. You wake up in the middle of the night, sense it breathing along your spine, wake early to its careful attempts to coax you back into the world. You don't know what it means to long for anything anymore. 

But maybe there's a way spring can succeed
at reminding you.