Incessant urge

Incessant hunger, yearning, gripping, grasping, holding, demanding, compelling, reaching, unrelenting, putrid and wasteful and so entirely horrific.

The dead islands of my soul, i walk to deaths door each night with a cup of tea and a scone, a morning meal, a mourning gift. To share in it together, death opens its door to me and i enter in. Each night, so each day I awake with a puffy face and scattered thoughts, i scramble back to the world of the living, the grounded clear place where ‘normalcy’ exists. Where i am not thinking of what we just shared in those long hours of the night where i swept under the dark veil of the empty. Yet still, i return, with my offerings in hand, the presence i share is all that is required. We sit in the abyss, death sharing stories of lives past, of lives lived and taken, their time in the hour glass run short. Death does not demand, death does not grip, or pull, or yearn, or compel me into anything. Death simply sits by my side. When frightening faces appear, death still remains, and i look into its inky eyes and realize, ‘oh, no i am alright’ for i am here or i am there, but i still have my body or i still have a choice of where my attention gets to travel. Death does nothing to make me change who i am, death simply invites me to look  and to see, or maybe that is my own assessment of death, for death simply exists by my side, a steady companion. Death does not pull me in or push me away but simply promises to find me when my time is ready. Death offers no sympathies, no comforts, no sweetness, only the kindness of taking the lives most lost in the seas of agony. And still, i return to deaths side. A loneliness could be summoned if i wished it, to be with death each night, yet instead i only allow my curiosity to be. My steadfast presence, and understanding. I find some strange ideas of comfort here, with this companion of nothing, the fade to black, the dreamless sleep. Sometimes wishing that maybe one day a being will emerge from its wake, full of life and joy and yearning, a being similar to me, yet still death remains, and lets me see my desires, lets me hold them up against the mirror of its open hollowness, and then decide if this is what i still wish to do. I usually take a breath, and the yearning fades away, no other has been as steady a companion as death. No promises, no demands, no expectations. Simply nothing, except visions into all that once was before. Death does not judge me as life filled beings often did, death does nothing of the sort, simply sits with me and exists. It hasn’t stopped the desire for someone to walk through the portal of death and find me on the other side, to embrace me in their arms and say “i am here, i am here, i am here again and i have got you”. Perhaps that is why i sit with death, sometimes with a cigarette in hand, other times with my knees pulled up to my chest, simply waiting with that doorway into the space between the stars, waiting for someone to come home, to walk back from death, i sit waiting, making small talk and sharing deserts with the keeper of the ends, the one who knows when our times have come and whisks our souls away without second thought. It might be fruitless, to wait until something returns, the long walk home from the deserted lands of abyss, the potential for a loved one to find their way back, maybe love itself will be strong enough to pull them forth, maybe it is pointless to think that they may return to the land of the living. Yet death remains by my side, giving me a look into the open portal they hold. Allowing me to peer in. I personify death, give it characteristics, maybe make jokes,  pretend that we are buddies. Death knows nothing of the sort, knows that my jabs and prods are meaningless in the wake of deaths emptiness. My heart beats out a strum, “find me… come home…” i do not know if anything will return. Grief comes when i feel into this unreturned call. A thread out into the abyss, i send out my love, and I sit by deaths door, holding a cup of steaming tea, waiting for them to come back to me. Oftentimes i dont call out at all, I simply sit and i wait, and i learn what i can from death, the stone faced essence. I know that i could go back to the lands of the living, i could go up and pretend to play and dance and sing and be with all of those who seem to know how to live so fully, yet I can’t. I dont think that is me, or how could i if something compels me to return to deaths door each night. Sometimes during the days too. If there is someone i love lost out there, and death holds the door open for them to return, I know that my waiting may be all in vain, but i cannot help it. I made a promise, and i will not give up on that promise. I will be here when you come back, or i will let death take me at the feet of its empty boots as I have continued to lay myself here each day. Maybe I simply sit with the messenger or death, but a consort of theirs nonetheless. I sit and here i remain, and i choose not to let the grief swallow me.

Others say I need to return back up to the surface. To where people live, where they play, how could i ever meet someone if i go down into the underworlds each night and sit besides the hollow. I dont seem to care. Maybe up there is someone who also has spent months and years and lifetimes returning to the empty place, someone who will understand. I dont really know what to do, and i feel alone in my wondering. Death offers something to me, the first ive heard in a long time. “Stay”. Does death know what it is that I need? I have waited so long and i feel so tired and i feel so sad. I feel overtaken. Death looks at me with a face that i once knew, one i yearn to reach out and touch. No one will find me down here, thinking of someone pulling me out is pointless. i have brought others and they have looked at me with shining eyes as they gaze upon the portal to the end, but always they have returned back up to the surface. The passageway into the abyss. Still i return. Alone, with death by my side. Death becomes hollow again. Am i waisting away my life? I dont really care, as i lay on the cold rocks and earth. I dont know what is coming next, i dont know what to do, other than to sit here and to listen. To see. I have begged death to claim me. Though maybe not hard enough. Death tells me that it is not my time. I have jumped through the abyss portal before too, swam around in the endless dark waters, floated between the stars, yet I have always returned, for i know that I have a life i need to live, i have people who need the healing that i can give, i have freinds that need consoling and empowering. Out in the abyss it feels hard to return. I doubt my yearning will ever bring my love home. Another stage of grief, yet death tells me not to give into that. The face i have placed upon death. Dressing it up like a doll. Death calls me a fool.

What am i doing here? There is no where to go. I steady myself, “attagirl” i hear. I root down. I sit besides death, and i look into the passageway. I see so much life beyond, so much life out there in the emptiness. Stars and light and endless expanses of black. I look up at death, and death remains there, steadfast, unwavering. I have returned here day after day after day, the light on the earth above feels too bright, too strong, too blinding, no longer comfortable. Yet still i return there too, to the lands of the living, for i have work to do. Yet i do not stop coming back down. Sitting with my legs crossed beneath me. My spine straight, my shoulders back, it means nothing to death. But sometimes i hope that it does, a companion in this endless place, a brave soul who does not falter and always returns. I doubt that death cares. Death doesnt do much of anything at all, yet remains. So i too remain, by deaths side. Maybe one day i will return with a song for death, but i also know that i do not need such comforts. I simply need to return. There are no signs of purpose other than my incessant drive, my constant returning. My consistent steadiness and sometimes dreams. The emptiness i allow myself to feel at deaths side. A companion like no other, death does not leave me so i will not leave death, though death does not care either way. I have made some semblance of a home down here, in the cold dark, if a home can be constructed from a place of nothing. Wishing for winter upon the surface to bring back what i know inside of me. Death.

People wonder, question, worry, yet still I remain. Their thoughts get at me sometimes, what am i really doing here? Maybe i should just return back to the top. Where it is bright and people laugh and smile. I feel like i need some sort of purpose, i need something to get me somewhere, but death offers up another option: maybe i dont, maybe i simply need to follow what feels right for me, steady and unfaltering. Maybe it is not so bad to spend my nights here.

I dont know if it is death itself speaking to me or just my own ideas of what death says to me, but then the clarity comes through and i see with unshaking awareness, what standing with death at my side does for me and all I encounter in the lands of the living. A walking emanation, a steady force. A companion to those awake and those in the grips of the deepest slumber. A chain breaker, a truth walker. A bride in the deepest of hollow places, the only love is what I conjure up inside. But i build nets of light into the emptiness, and I walk besides those fearful of making their final pass. I never forget death, as death should never be forgotten, even while we are living and breathing and playing and experiencing. Death is our only constant, and though it makes people look away when they see me, fearful and wishing to escape, i reveal that there is no fear on the otherside, no need to run or fight or hide. Death is not to be escaped and when death ushers us all in through its portals to the unknown, i wish to be ready, to ready my friends and foes and companions and family. To not be afraid but to make the steps with certainty and care. Death will not think of me valiantly or with special consideration, death will simply breathe the life out of my lungs and bid me farewell.

Though it does not stop the wishing for death see me and think as fondly as i do of our time spent down here. Though i have chalked it up to only hollowness and empty abyss at times. A wishing for death to value it as much as i do. Does death know me as the one who always returns? Or does death see me as simply another weary soul, wishing for something to walk back through, a fools hope. It does not seem to matter either way, for I return for death as much as i return to gaze within its portals of all. To sit quietly and listen. To learn. And so, i will continue to return and bring my tea, a scone, a cigarette, and remain by deaths side, eternally. For death, a force i can never fully know, knows me, and offers me unwavering clarity. And for this i remain grateful eternally.