Be sure to stoke the fire. You're gonna want it hot for what's coming next.

A memory:

Guttural cry rumbling up from the depths of my belly, feet planted firmly on the earth, I see you, and I stand my ground.

The cold ocean splashes at my feet. They suction to the saturated sand, leaving prints that disappear over and over. Only the essence of contact remains.

Sometimes songs are that quiet on the outside.

Start right here, now. The texture on the top unfurling layer of your rhythmic heart is the first petal, utterly available. Generous.

Take a wiff. Touch it to your lips.

Great unraveler, thank you for your grace. 

Your shapeless face removes my masks.

I know the puddle on the floor.

Right now, I am able to notice how elevated I feel in the chair just above it.

Somehow the fire has graced me with just enough will to sit upright, drawn to its warmth.

Is that dawn, just on the horizon?

Pluto, I am at home in your depths, born of your mystery. 

Spring dawns in my heart from your dark medicine, making the soil rich and pure.

Though I don't know it yet, flowers will bloom here and make gardens of me.

There is bounty where I am headed now.

My compass has pointed me there.

There is a right next place. 

...This. This long, relentless now that insist upon the death of my hope for the familiarity of the light, ensuring I do not mistake a synthetic source for the real thing. 

Negotiating fiercely with the unknown, I cannot permit death to take me this way. Instead, I open the animal of doubt inside this crunchy rib cage so I can smell my own blood and feel the pulse of my heart beat that connects me to all living things.

Sometimes we must cross riverbeds to get where we’re going.

Life requires that kind of devotion, incisive attention to traverse the spaces between.