There is no beauty more enrapturing than that of juxtaposition
Opposing forces exchanging unlikely compliments
Two distinct realities
Mutually exclusive until suddenly they’re not
Until suddenly it’s impossible to imagine one without the other
As if this is the way the Mother intended for us to see the world
With this contradictory magic
One that’s kept itself a secret from us until this very moment
But has surely always been
Intrigue and inspiration
An offering of insight
A clarifying declaration
“Look, we can exist together
In fact, we’re better that way
Light is lovely.
But darkness puts the depth in my eyes”
I had seen you once before
Only from afar
A silhouette
You were the enigmatical darkness cast against a burning, orange sky
I needed to know you.
But you were gated
Locked up
“Not today”
When you finally let me in
You didn’t hold back
“Revel in my entirety
My wholeness
Light and dark
Life and ruin
Watch in wonder at the cleverness with which I am able to grow, at my buzzing, blissful movement, my vivid color, my perpetual transformation
Yet delight in my divine decay, my beautiful collapse, my implacable disintegration
You’ll find one is not more beautiful than the other
If you’re going to love me, both will be to blame”
So I explored you.
Enchanted by your living grace
Mesmerized by the markings on your face
Telling tales of another life
I climbed to your tallest tower.
Inside lay a dead songbird
Outside, a fluttering mosaic of butterflies
A single, white flower
Sprouting from a cracked, ancient, red brick
In the face of ruin and death,
Life
Beautiful and unapologetic
I stood in the doorway
Pressed my small hands hard against the stone frame
The sun licked at my face, leaving my cheeks and lips tingling
A cool wind blew up around me
Lifting the black curls off the back of my too-white neck
The songbirds whistled a death march for their fallen brother behind me
The butterflies, unaware that there is ugliness in the world, floated on.
And there I stood
A world of power inside of one tiny body
A tragic comedy
A work in progress and a masterpiece.
In the doorway of ruin
Alive
Beautiful and unapologetic