My tears keep falling in the middle of the night
I tell myself that it will be all right
Through years of ache it’s come to light
They are still alive.
I cannot touch them, a veil remains
But is no longer the source of pain
The truth, it shines, the light retains
They are still alive.
I feel as if I’ve seen a caul
Waver, weaken, finally fall
The truth beckons through it all:
They are still alive.
And I can believe.
This was written after finding out that someone with whom I’ve fallen out of touch is doing well. I’m okay with still being out of touch, but I can’t quite contain my joy at finding out that my fears were misplaced.
My writing has a general sense of melancholia – even the most determinedly happy writing has a cloud of “but…” hanging over it. Written in a bit of a fugue, this is … different, largely because the “someone” here was a primary component of the inescapable sense of melancholia.
(I had a casual conversation with an old friend, and dropped a “Hey, do you know whatever happened to ____,” and got information back, rather unexpectedly. Quite surprising, and wonderful. And yes, this is related to the author from “Today’s Seconds.”)
It’s a marvelous thing, thinking “whatever happened to…?” and discovering that the answer was a lot better than you’d been worried about.