12.07.2002 1:30 pm
light

one small rainbow falls upon my keyboard from the round light refractor in my window. a prism, they call it.

prison, where light is trapped, tortured, and finally let loose on the world in a new, refined form, separated into its composite parts, so that it no longer poses a danger to society. reds, over here. blues, there. yellow, green, you two keep in the middle.

but though i can only look at one colour at once now, a narrow strip projected onto my retina, that isolated colour is still so brilliant as to blind me temporarily. colour scorching a place you can't feel. where is the retina? internal, interior. it's not like when you cut your finger, and you can look at it and say, "yes, that's where the 'ouch' is coming from." when light burns your eyes, it's like it's burning your brain. you can't massage it away, you can't kiss it and make it better. part of what constitutes thought--vision--is injured, and revolts against the edgeless, burningless assault of pure light.

the amount of time james and i have spent together probably (i'm sure) contributes greatly to the degree of closeness we share. but even since our first meeting, we've been able to finish each other's sentences. the first night i consciously remember that connection was when we were sitting across one of the long dining room tables at Hotchkiss, he on one end, i on the other. everyone was having staring contests with each other, who could stare longest without looking away. departing from the more common rule of blinking contests, these competitons could go on for a long, long time, because as long as you concentrated on keeping your focus on the other person's eyes, the event continued. well, james was the ruling champion at the time. somehow he and i began staring at each other across the table. soon enough, everyone noticed that neither one of us was looking away, so casual attention was paid to police the event. we must have stared at one another for... 45 minutes. at one point, near the end, i looked away for a second and then looked back. someone said, "ah, ah, james wins again!" and at the same time as the thought passed through my head, it came out of james's mouth: "it's not a competition."

he was the first person that i was conscious of being in love with. i mean, i love my mom, but i've only known that for the past two years or so. i've loved james for about four and a half years. this is through two years of going out, five months of an "open" relationship, his falling in love with another girl, then being dumped by her and having his heart broken. and in four years, he and i were living in the same place for a sum total of about eight months. and yet every time we see each other, whether it's been a day or four months since we last met, it's like we haven't been apart. i see a spark in him, an internal brilliance that matches my thirst for it.

he sleeps now, bundled in my bed's blues and purples, the afternoon sun occasionally half-rousing him as it strikes his eyes (he sleeps with them partially open), and he readjusts, burrows deeper into the covers.

as i type, searching for descriptors, i am distracted by the sight of him. turning my head to see him, i am caught by the impossibility of relating who he is and what he means to me. as with the light, i am blinded. like the light, he can hurt me in a place where i didn't know i could be hurt, where i don't know how to heal myself except to look away, and yet the beauty of the sight draws me back again, staring across that table for what seemed like hours--even when i looked away i had to look back. i always look back.

he leaves tomorrow, and i'll drive him to the bus station as i have so many times before, unable to look away as the bus turns some final corner and he goes out of sight my eyes blurred with tears and the only recourse is to stand still until my eyes repair themselves, objects fade back into sight from the white fire that is this love, whose brilliance i can't turn away from but which blinds me every time.

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