Lightning in a Bottle
I have always been of the belief that things happen for a reason. I’ve always comforted myself with the quaint (and perhaps naive) notion that we are exactly where we’re supposed to be at any given moment, and the “choices” we make will ultimately lead us down whatever path we were meant to tread.
Maybe that’s why it hit me so hard when I met you. Somehow, the exact sequence of events necessary to place us both in a bar, far from our respective homes, occurred. We sat there, talking and laughing and drinking late into the night. I couldn’t explain it, but I felt drawn to you. It was an immediate, deeply-felt connection, unlike anything I’d ever felt before, with anyone. It was magical. Electric. Profound.
It was as if lightning struck us both, and forged a connection between our souls.
For days after we left, I couldn’t get you out of my mind. We exchanged numbers and texted each other as often as we could. Our conversations ranged from our shared tastes and past experiences, to things that went much deeper…things we were hesitant to admit even to ourselves about what we’d been going through.
We came to the conclusion that we’d both been drifting. We’d become mechanical and unfeeling, going through the motions of our lives and putting on whatever face we were expected to. We kept smiling for the world, but inside, we were empty — shells of our former selves.
When we met each other, everything changed. That jolt brought us back from the brink of emotional and spiritual death, and we felt alive in ways we never knew we could. For me, everything I thought I knew about myself and what I was capable of feeling went right out the window. I realized almost instantly that this was different; transcendent, really. My eyes were opened and I never wanted to shut them.
You said that on the night we met, the two of us captured lightning in a bottle. That powerful charge, trapped in the confines of its glass prison, only grows stronger now, feeding its energy back into itself. I can feel the bottle walls starting to crack; the lightning wants to burst forth and break free. It’s bigger than you or me. It wants to consume us, and give us the chance to bask in its blinding brightness. To explore something real, tangible and earth-shattering.
Like any force of nature, this lightning we’ve captured has the potential to destroy us if we let it. At worst, it will end us, leaving us broken and shattered. At best, though, it will etch a permanent and beautiful scar on us, a lasting reminder of this pure human connection we were lucky enough to experience together.
It’s dangerous, but it’s a risk I’m willing to take, because I can’t go back to a life of not knowing what this feels like. I can’t un-learn what it means to truly feel alive, the way I do with you. I can’t and won’t forget this; it’s a part of me now.
And so, I uncork the bottle, and wait to be swallowed by the light with you.
