Phoenixes

What does it mean to shed tears for a loved one? Not for her shortcomings, never once for her mistakes. It is not for a strain on the tattered fabric of relationship’s mast, nor due to the cascading bombardment of waves upon its creaky deck, carried up by the deathly seas of interpersonal storms. Nay, the liquid fire that leaks unbidden from the swirling twin maelstroms of our inner Eros and Hades is reflective of a transcendental mirror stage as formative of the — not I — Us. Not for the fault in the constellations of her beautifully human imperfections, but for the pure and holy sin of circumstantial togetherness: that heaven-ushered clap of thunder accompanying each clasp of hands, every warm press of a tear-sodden hug alongside its lengthy emotional genealogy. The tears fall from an organic causality of mutuality, seemingly threadbare in appearance yet gluttonously epicurean in its raw primal essence. No accusing finger need be lifted at the first sign of moist eyes, no distant sighs heaved from pulsating lungs of disappointment. I weep simply because you do too; this bubbling grief that we share and bear between us erupts from the ashen breath of a single volcano. We shall burn together, grass trees and soil, and from our ashes so too shall we rise as phoenixes crying out in defiance against the incredulousness of life — together.