glassysky

It is midnight. I hear the carbonation fizzing out of my store-brand soda. I hear the branches of the trees brushing one another in the dark. And I hear the last act of Traviata coming from my computer, broadcast from NYC. My past is slipping away. Nights in the grand dining hall of Lowell House, the romance of space and darkness and bourbon and youth is slipping away. There was a time when the breathless panting, the gasps and halts and whispers of this final act seemed as precious and true as life. And by an act of memory I can return to that sensation, but it is ... painful? It is not right. It is selfishness, and my conscience attacks me. It is the very feeling that once addicted me, the physical and emotional sensation of being on the edge of tears that will not come. Certain women brought this on in both their presence and their absence. The river did it, a thousand stars did it, at certain times waking up did it, sitting in class did it, walking down the street did it. It is a certain madness, it is like tinnitus, like water torture, like the torture of Tantalus. And always the question: what is it that is just out of reach? Tears? Life? Death? Ecstasy? Infinity? Negation?