dear Magic,

I've spent another year avoiding you, taunting you and courting you. This is how we move in the world, ecstatic and wanting; none of us will admit that we know the way home. That we are unwilling to become electric. That we choose pain, again and again, for the promise of momentary relief. That we live into tried and true paradoxes, so well worn they creak and sway like little ships lost at sea.

When Cohen wrote Everybody Knows, he looked outward to the world. The conflict and oppression, so well worn and familiar. To war and love affair and illusion. I'm hung up on the the things we don't admit to knowing. That growing quiet and getting distance from our thoughts can transform the world. That we are all burning stars, muted by indecision.

Well.

It's been another year and I'm still a dusty quiet blue. It's still tangled into my hair, my words. The way I spend my days. It's been another year and I have not done the obvious things that would light me up and burn away the veil. I've been hanging out with ghosts again. Nothing gets done.

But magic; you scare the fuck out of me. I mean, really. When I look into your infinite blue and name you (foolish), I hear one thousand names echo back. When I witness the star fed body beyond this cramped and selfish mind, I vanish. Witness.

Our greatest fear is this deathless love. This radiant always; and you want me to become infinite.

Stalemate.

Still we dance. The most beautiful thing I know; the flicking of awareness, of willingness, in a sacred and expansive dark. If I am a narcissist, let it be known that it was you, Magic, who stole my inward gaze.

Cheers, darling.

Essy

January 9th, 2018