When I go home late at night and the streets are almost empty, I think of you. I think of you when I cross the street and see headlights approaching me.
I think of you when I am standing on the platform of a train station especially when it is crowded and people spill into other lanes like when a river inundates and floods the communities surrounding it. I think of you when I am on the verge of that red area, teasing it, tempting, then I’ll hear the shrill sound of the guard’s whistle. I know though that if I fall onto the tracks, you might be there to catch me. I know you would be there if the train is already nearby.
I don’t quite understand why people are scared of you; why we don’t talk about you when you are as natural as the air we breathe; why many banish you from their thoughts when you cross their minds like that. But nothing could ever make them escape you. Still, I think of you many times. I think of you when I am in bed at night and imagine that you would come when I am asleep... Would you please be gentle? I don’t want to feel any pain when you come.
And while you could also bring pain, how often have I thought of you when I was in pain, thinking that you would be the only one that could assuage whatever grief I was feeling? The thought of you alone during those times had brought me imagined peace… imagined… because while you are as natural as breathing, as inhaling and exhaling, as sleeping and eating. Meeting you to relieve my pain is an escape, an act of cowardice.
I know I will meet you one day. That day is inevitable, because as surely as the sun rises and the moon replaces it, you will come, though at an uncertain time. Ah, so many things are strange and uncertain nowadays, like the coming of the rain during the summer season in a tropical country… but you have never changed. You have always been around. I know you will come, though at an uncertain time. I would like to be prepared for you. I am preparing for you. When will you come?
(April 29, 2009-October 24, 2009)
