Prose : Poles

Poles

Laid down, it held an emptiness waiting to be filled. Its outlines would mold and reshape at the contact of my own. And there I lay, breathing as if I was made of air, unafraid of what the darkness would bring. Or of what the light would reveal.

It held me close that the winds could not bite me, nor could the light touch me. Soft and supple that no mattress of foam, cotton, or water could ever take its place.

Lying there, I heard the footsteps of countless raindrops joining together, marching as an endless torrent just above my windows. Lying there I discovered the rhythm of my breath that was without worries, fears, or regrets.

Staring at the wide open darkness, I charted my happiness alongside the maps of chances, tracing it alongside someone else’s, so that I may never be alone again. When daylight came, it arrived with things and places moving, falling and sprouting. It moved me.

Light and Dark have danced so many times since then, and yet I cannot forget: that emptiness that I filled and filled me, where I lost and found myself, the warmth and the tenderness of that bed formed by the poles…

…of your outstretched arms and parted legs.