You Don't Need to Understand

You Don't Need to Understand, You Only Need to Listen

Some nights, the vacancy of sleep
grows nervous under your weight
and there is a whisper in the void.
It is not the wind, which has settled
in the deserts and the crevices
of the coast, nor is it the rain,
which has lent the sky to the stars.
Rather it is the question itself,
murmuring, begging, crying,
howling in the immediacy of the dark.

Can you remember?

Remember when words smelled like pinecones,
names looked like endless holes in outer space,
and anger urged the nonsense
out of our throats with bombast.

Remember when we built sandcastles
around our voices, lowering the bridges
only for the worthy few, who could withstand
the otherwise perpetual combustion.

Remember when we did things right
and the ovation sent us running to the corners,
folding ourselves over and over like paper,
smaller and smaller, until the praises stopped.

Remember when we dreamt ourselves
into the fields of nothing
and the silence droned on and on
all through the night.

Remember when death was a haze
that made our stomachs sink
in the dry heat of summer,
as unfathomable and inevitable as growing up.

Remember when we were the sun,
the moon,
the planets,
the rightful captor of every struggling insect.

Remember when words smelled like pinecones.
Remember when we built sandcastles.
Remember when we did things right.
Remember when we dreamt ourselves.
Remember when death was a haze.
Remember when we were the sun.

I remember.

The original Sin
was the ringing in my ears.