and then we stepped up.
snowdust studded on my feet and the ends of my sweater sleeves. the fresh mountain aroma cinched around my ankles.
i lived a thousand lifetimes in a hurried rhythm of time. i drank glasses full of molten starlight. i tasted a plethora of colours, palettes of beige and green dripping from between my teeth, licking cloud froth off my fingertips.
and then there was a fraction of earth wrapped up in sheer white. pretty little snow hearts melting in the heat of my palms. two tiny snow bodies holding each other's wooden arms. our own legs buried half inside. blurred pictures of us as snowfairies. our arms and legs stretched out as if we could gather all the possible euphoria and lost childhood. we threw around snowballs on the familiar faces of those we had just met. our synchronous laughter filled the vast infinity of pure white hills around us. we deliberately stepped in depths of the footprints of the ones who walked before. thus we found safety and warmth in the marks of strangers.
we danced around under moonlit skies in the puddles of delight, spreading and waving our arms in all directions, our hair swaying with our passion, kissing the cool breeze, until the morning sun draped every peak and tree tops and tents in its amber brilliance and left diffuse orange spots on snow like a mother leaving small kisses on her child's face to gently wake him. everything lit up in a different sense of vigor.
sleep settled in waves and pats. rest came in brief episodes between consecutive beats.
with each passing moment, we were breathless, yet with chest brimming full with life. asked for a grant of life, to be spent cautiously, steadily, yet thoroughly. asked for a grace of handful of supplementary breaths.
breathe.
breathe.
breathe.
breathe. step ahead.
alive.
and then they all went ahead while i stayed there in an absolute, freezing desolation. my brain raced a marathon at the speed of a billion notions per minute. it ran and it ran, passing the deserted towns of fears, crossing the boulevard of complaints,
across the streets of defeats. and then it raced some more, until it couldn't anymore. and then there was peace. a sweet numbness. a soothing stagnancy. an amicable isolation.
all was huge. mountains. trees. dreams and hopes. in that moment, my entire existence felt insignificantly small, floating around in random patterns. so distant from all i knew. a little distant even from myself. nothing before had ever felt safer and more reassuring.
all my fears fled away. all my complaints looked minimal. and what i had labelled defeat was but an apology for all the torment that i had put upon myself all this time. rather it turned into an acclamation for myself for holding on so tight so far.
i felt daisies and sunflowers spring up under my skin. it was freezing cold but i was lit with a subtle warmth. there was silence but there was laughter tickling the insides of my fingers. there was no music but there was a choir ringing up my veins.
i swallowed the sunlight mixed with my tears as my eyes watered when i looked up straight into the sun and he smiled down, a wordless conversation between him and his sunlet. and in that magical moment, all was same, fixed, unmoving, yet all was new.
so i filled my lungs with all the wet fragrances and my eyes with all the bright colours and my bags with all the instances that had left me marvellously astounded. and then with a suitcase full of instances that could not be captured, songs which could not be sung enough in loops, memories that could not be saved in pictures, we descended.
our bodies internally gleaming with contentment like citylights in distance through the stained windowpanes that we watched in silence for hours as the bus moved in circles and circles. all moved forward but our hearts remained there settled, resolved.
and then, at once, all was distant, like the citylights too. the places we had come to call ours in just a numbered days. the people we had made our temporary homes in. all were close. but all were distant already. like the city we were approaching but also leaving behind.
<< to all my new sunlets, please continue to live on inside me >>
