I was brought into this world kicking and screaming,

scared of the darkness and scared of the light. Neither fluorescent, incandescent, neon, or ultraviolet are like the clear white light back home, unbroken and undifferentiated. Children are closer to God. The things that old people can barely get a glimpse of, children can still remember. I remember the abstract dreams of shadow and light, the penetrating darkness, the distances that could not be traversed, and that light on the other side of the divide receding into the distance. I remember the act of dreaming more than the dreams themselves. I’m homesick for the void, lovesick for the high priestess of darkness. Loneliness of the child becomes suicide daydreams for the adolescent becomes a way of life for the adult survivor. In all these years, nothing’s really changed. I still get a lump in my throat at a woman’s glance, a lump in my pants at a woman’s touch. Everything else is hypothetical. Everything else is mere color splashed on the screen, light diffracted through a prism, sound run through a synthesizer.

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