Sun-eater

Written after silent and study retreat in August and September

All day long, I watch my pendulum mind swing between answers. Desire, dislike, desire, dislike. Back and forth it moves, and the world adapts accordingly like sand shifted by wind.

In the morning, the object is beautiful. I try to catch its eye. I flirt and negotiate with reality to tug it closer. I imagine the sweetness of having it.

The sun rises and the object isn’t what I thought. The shape is wrong, not what I wanted at all. The morning was a fantasy; I see it as it is now.

And the sun sets and I really see it as it is: lovely. And the sky turns black and I really see it as it is: lonely. And it rises and sets and rises—intoxicating, stupid, cruel, precious. No, it’s that, I say. That, no that, no really it’s that. A magician tugging the cloth off the box to reveal another cloth and another cloth and another cloth. I’m the best audience member; I have horrible short term recall and I keep forgetting that he just pulled off a cloth.

The first ripe peach of the summer is ecstasy. No, it’s bittersweet because it will be gone soon. No, it’s frightening because it means I’m another year older. It’s home for the worm. It’s sticky. It’s sweet. It’s beginning. It’s ending. I’m holding the same peach. I’m holding a thousand peaches.

I think about my death so much it becomes strange, like a too-repeated word. Peaches end, but not me. No, you too. That can’t be. Me?

It’s true. Someone dies and it’s a hole ripped out of the world. It’s happening right now. Can you hear it? Listen and listen; it begins to sound foreign; a dark mantra I’ve lost the meaning of.

Here I am, going between addiction and disgust over a peach. Well, it’s not just the peach. It’s you, too, I’m sorry to admit. I didn’t like when you looked at me weird on the subway. I wanted you desperately enough to hurt you. I hated you desperately enough to hurt you. I was bored insufferably enough to hurt you. I took the peach for myself, or I gave it to you and expected it back with interest. Meanwhile, the peach has gone bad and I only have so many summers left in this body.

Someone asks me what unconditional love is. It’s when the object doesn’t change. It’s when you look beautiful in every light. I hold the pendulum so still the universe dissolves into a single point. I watch you bite into the fruit, juice running down your lovely chin, and the sweetness pours into me like it’s my own mouth. I don’t need a mouth. I taste pleasure by seeing yours.

When you love like that your death is not a hole ripped out of the world. You become like a song inside a channel, like the moon on the lake. The body that dies was a cloth the magician pulls off to reveal…

I don’t want to spoil it. You’re the magician, anyway. You figure it out.

Eat the peach. If it’s just a peach, then it ends and so do you. You could make it a sun that breaks you open until there’s nothing but light. Eat the pain. Eat the ecstasy. Make it a sun, a song, a sound—familiar, stunning, the clearest thing you’ve ever known.