You are more the desert night than you know.

Cold, intangible shadow dancing on the periphery of the sputtering fire’s glow. Unshakable silence that falls more thunderously and ominously than sound could ever hope to do. When night comes to the desert, man retreats back within his fragile cocoon of artificial light and life-sustaining warmth. In the presence of such elemental immensity, the scope of the unknown world becomes unfathomably vast while our sphere of perception shrinks only to the immediate.

There are mysteries ensconced there, soft echoes resonating in the darkness, which will remain forever indecipherable to me.

The desert has always called to me, and I have always answered. I creep out onto the fringes of encroaching twilight and sing to it in my many voices, waiting for the shadow time…waiting to be reminded of who I am and why I’m here. Filling the void with the essence of nothing, that is what I do. Conduit, catalyst, filter, inconsequentiality.

I am reminded of many realities there. Cold, austere beauty. Life’s delicate matrix of illusion and artifice. Dancing, winding, wind moving across the midnight sand with the certainty of a serpent, silent. Whirling there amid the infinite empty. Alone.

Yet, I am in a new place with you. I’ve not been here before, perhaps. I am unsure of many things. Love? No, not likely. I cannot love that which I do not yet understand, nor that which declares itself to be separate and apart from me as you have so boldly done. I know only that I yearn to know you. I yearn to understand. It is hard to hold my feelings in check. I am no veteran where affairs such as these are concerned. Pretense has never been my forte.

For as long as I can remember, I have reveled in the honesty of my emotion and the truth of the expression that lay therein. With you, I am undone. I am so fitfully undone.

There, alone with my thoughts, a hands breadth from you, craving your touch, craving to feel your warmth beneath my hands, consigned instead to alienation and silence. What do you want? Have I not asked you directly? Is that not enough? Near you, trapped in this place in such a way that, from this point onward, however far I roam, you are near to me also. I want to understand. I want to enfold you in my arms and let you speak to me. With each shuddering breath that I draw, I want nothing more than to understand the heart of you. That is the path. Understanding. I want to see you gazing once more into the deep wells of my eyes. There is more there than you know, I think. I hope that the lessons of this world have not lain so heavy a mark upon you that you are left unable to accept the truth, having finally stumbled your long way home.

I have felt you tremble beneath my touch, seen the helpless shift of your gaze as I have drawn near to you. You are no less a creature of the flesh than I, and for all your confusion, your elusive truth is no farther away than the gentle caress of my breath upon your neck (the delicate curve of your beautiful neck).

It is not truth you lack, but faith instead.

You are rare and precious, my lady, but I am not made of stone. Time takes its toll, leaves its mark upon my back, and this old webwork of scars is dreadfully weary. I pray that you will find the strength to believe, or instead the strength to set me free. I would sorrow greatly at having to turn my back on something so rare and indescribably precious, simply for the sake of prudence.

Trust

redguard@blackvault.com