No Longer Certain

It confounds me how your love can exist so comfortably beside your secret. A radiant warmth snuggled next to an abysmal darkness. A pool of green water. Still. Absolutely unaffected by earthquakes all around.

            Eyes wide, I peer into your shine. Try to gulp it in. I’m almost blinded. A moment later, off to the right, the shadow of your mystery arrives to abduct your brilliance.

            I think I can live right here. In this space—between my karate chop hands held a foot apart--if I pretend the lack of light is a lie. A miscommunication. Soon after though, I become sure of your misdeeds. They nip at my ankles. Draw my feet (and heart) down like quicksand.

I could not for the life of me stop thinking of Adam and Eve. Eve mostly, though I wondered why Adam didn’t rise up. Be the man. Do the right thing. Stop. Eve.

            I felt, for the second time in my life, a bit like God. Foolish, I know. But similar still.

            We were perfect, weren’t we? But really, we weren’t. The lie, the what if, had already slipped in. Tainted paradise. Infected glory.

Now I understand how the worst thing that can happen is doubt. Mine. Yours. And now I live as though someone stepped on my eyes. That shape on the horizon, is it beauty, or evil? And the form to the left of it. Tell me. Is it kindness or deception?

            I think that’s what I miss most. The certainty that what I know is what I know.

            And yet I love you still.