Irrecoverable

January 17, 2015

Sometimes, when I put my hair up a certain way, and I catch a wayward reflection of myself on some shiny surface, I see my mother looking back. For a microsecond she is there.

But I have ceased taking a second look when this happens. She is forever lost to me. And irrecoverable, she stands on the other side of the shiny surface, perhaps looking back, perhaps not.

March 19, 2015

On his way back to the village, Jarvis meets Kumalo, the father of his son’s murderer. Despite himself, Jarvis asks the other father if he remembers his son, and Kumalo says, yes. Even if he doesn’t.

How does it happen that there are some things in this world we wish we did not understand?

Like this begging for a shared memory? Or the blinding clarity of how natural it is to need it so much. Or the embarrassment of having to stutter when you try to explain where you are going, because you  were going someplace where you could wait for the longing to abate. Or the immense gratitude for the kind of empathy that does not require a syllable of explaining.

This comprehension, this insight into what the human soul is capable of enduring—where does one give it back?

July 6, 2015

Always. I have to pause in the middle of a lecture, from my tasks, in my tracks. I stop because I have to acknowledge your non-presence. All of a sudden, This does not make sense. 

Towards what end do I slave away, or struggle, or endure? For what am I kind, or thoughtful or honest? Your death eats away at all my reasons.

And I want to stay there, in that pause, where you are.

We will forever be a heartbeat apart, forever a soul away--my breath is our distance; our memory, my curse.