#remains

There are times when, left to himself, he feels as still as snow, in a strange abstraction between the icy, shivering breath of the delicate snow, and the stiffness of a body below the frozen ground. There are memories that flicker across his sight while he's withdrawn, lights breaking the veil from somewhere, some other world that keeps the past and so much more beyond this world. Traumatic memories break into little sparks of light, and then die off, or fizzle back beyond the veil. There is a vigil in his eyes; this space, where time wavers between his man-self and child-self, his old-self as they stand side-by-side, united in a latent sense of terror. The conscious flame in his eyes is older than he supposes he'll ever be, in a measure of time that stretches beyond the capacity of this world into another, somehow. His lips are still tender with young blood and hope, but are weighted down by heavier gravity, his stomach the same as the pit of the earth, burdened by the same understanding, a shared sorrow. The voices of his partners casts only so far down into the pit he's in. He sits at the bottom of himself, visited by sensations beyond known description, outside of time, lost on the world.

He laughs with humorless irony. Even his last laugh is blighted by this one question -- more a neurosis now than a question, this tragic strain of madness... and he, both observer and worker, toys with, molds the thought in his mind's hands. I suppose this is the strain of sorrow my grandfather carried,he thinks just once, and suffers a little laugh. I wonder... my joy -- my own stars light up within me with maternal care, as if each is the specter of a foremother... my joy -- us two in ironic laughter, childlike and harrowing as rain during a sunny day. And I think... do they not see a sun that was created just for you, and casted into your eyes like a gem fashioned from God's own happy tear? and how this sun of your own blooms in your eyes -- the color taken from the grand, blue sky itself -- when you feel joy? there are no hearts around could be found sensitive to such a thing -- how the sunlight of your soul is visible at the slightest shiver of joy, how magical your contentment is, producing such effects! the kernel of sacred, pure sorrow in your tragic chuckle is a treasure by holiness, the crown jewel on humanity's inane head... you smile, and your creases make waves. you, who will be young for eternity, are so old in the lines of the face and the eyes, and your sweet, childlike smile... and yet, you muttered earlier, "you know, it's getting hard to convince myself anymore I can do anything right." there is nothing sufficient for me to say to you. my eyes immediately pooled with tears. and I told you, "you have got to get these thoughts out of your head, Patrick." and what I meant to say is that I will stick it on their souls, and testify right before God! I have wild anger for these snots that dare disparge you. who cares what they think or do, Patrick? do you know how low of an opinion I have for these people, that make not even a sniffle on my own soul? fuck them all, really! and I suffered then for your pain deeply. I never confessed that you remind me of only biological sibling, my older brother, who died years ago; his life reminds me painfully of your state of mind. it was suicide -- "I will never be good for anything," he said, many times -- too many times for our parents to do nothing about it, to tell you the truth. I was 11 years old. I hope you can come to understand my seeming distance and coolness; I hope you know by now part of it is to protect both of us. it would be no use to you if I collapsed. and one day, one day I wait for every day actually, I will be candid with you and tell you the truth about everything. do you know the debt on my soul that would come if I never told you how much you mean to me? you're not going to die. I'm going to tell you, one of these days.