my Glimmer

Darkness has wrapped me up,

stolen all I once loved,

but when I squint just right,

I swear there’s a Glimmer,

it’s out there, somewhere.

Perhaps my soul knows something my mind does not.

Hands grasping empty ether,

knocking on an invisible door,

but this door must exist,

otherwise…why am I knocking?

I cannot go on, my mind believes,

‘yes,

you can,

and you will,

and you must.’

Who said that?

No reply.

I’m all alone in this black vacuum of space.

Swimming as fast as I can to the surface,

I’m shutting down,

screaming underwater, hoping it’s the end,

but something won’t let me drown,

gasping for air that barely satisfies yet keeps these burnt lungs alive,

there it is,

I see my Glimmer again.

It sparkles like hope for a home I’ve never known,

written in my destiny, a cosmic inevitability.

Paddling under a moonless sky,

missing a time when days were real,

wondering if I’ll live to see another ray of sunlight,

begging my mind;

hold on tight to orange mornings and blue afternoons,

don’t let darkness take colours too.

I can’t swim much further,

lost with no search party,

too tired to go on,

let the sea have its way with me.

Floating beneath all-consuming nothingness,

I whisper into the abyss;

Glimmer?

Are you really there?

How do I get to you?

As though currents, tides, and waves were only ever figments of childlike imagination,

the ocean stills like a broken clock.

Please Glimmer,

I’m begging now,

I know you’re real,

I felt you before I ever saw you,

Won’t you come and save me?

This perpetual night flees from the sky,

chased away by pure daylight,

my Glimmer burst through lantern glass,

becoming everything,

everywhere,

all at once,

shimmering within every last atom.

Forgetting the touch of warmth until now,

basking in it with closed eyes,

drifting along waters of truest peace,

gently washing up on shore like a message in a bottle,

discovering love in the shape of an island,

winds blowing a new breeze of hope,

I remember now,

this is home.

Laying my head on sand made of clouds,

watching as light becomes human,

sitting beside me.

Lost for words like I was lost at sea,

my Glimmer wipes streams of my speechless tears away.

You did all this for me?

‘You cannot imagine the things I have done for you,

neither could you know how your suffering has tortured me.’

Why didn’t you save me earlier?

‘You never asked until now.’

But why would you let me live in darkness so long?

‘Sometimes, one must live in complete darkness before they can truly love light.’

So, what do we do now?

‘You will live for the first time.

We will mend all things broken,

dance in freedom,

sing with thanksgiving,

delight ourselves in nature,

win every battle with courage,

we will experience all the ways one may love and be loved,

together.’