The poet´s way of describing my relationship with death. One late morning, I just hopped in front of the screen and wrote down the below text in an hour and a half. Do not ask me where the words came from... Sometimes when I write, it feels like I am "speaking" with a different voice and the tipping hands are not mine.
Raw, bony and dry, I imagined death to be.
His architecture, an edifice just about to crumble and prepared to once again turn into dust. Calcareous sediment as the only evidence of his former existence – cells and life that too, once upon a time, were buzzing and humming like bumble bees on a sunny day searching for nectar on flowers.
Death and I became intimate over the past two years. So that today my hands dare caress his body. Slide across his bones. Gently touch his face. We are two lovers, dancing along through the darkness of days and nights.
This was not always so… Oh! Death has known me well – so well – since I was born. Not least, because death is the ultimate precondition for all new life.
But… I, somehow I had forgotten about this very fact – the presence of death in life. Which I ignored despite that he was never far away, a companion looming behind the next corner. He observed my path unfolding, whilst I was busily “living”. Patiently he was waiting, wearing a smirky smile underneath his cloak. A shadow on a watch, he truly was. A spirit unseen. An invisible force – who then, by sudden invitation, took me out for a dance.
The dancefloor of hell: there are no disco lights and no upbeat tunes but pain in motion.
He pulled me in, delightfully opening the gates to his dark house of doom. He dragged me along; because first I resisted. Yet, to go out for that dance with death was my only option to stay alive.
This… I realised later. Retrospect. It is a great thing. But back then I did not know. Instead, I froze. I was incapacitated in bed. There was no sky but all shades of grey on my horizon. Clouds sent by death. Heralds guiding the way as he was approaching, an ever-enclosing colour of black, getting closer and closer into my previously so blinding white life. He wrapped his body around me. Caringly lifted me till I stayed afloat in this embrace. I had no control but to sink in, I was a soft prey in his arms as he started to walk. One step then another. His hips were swaying to the sides, left to right, right to left, back and forth – it was a very flirtatious movement, each stride filled with pride. A river of morbid motion that started to flow. As the dance evolved, death diffused and so did I, with him. We metamorphosed into swirls of vapour. Nebulous strings webbing shadows. Airborne chaos leaving Earth. Dissolved matter travelling to a different universe. We arrived in a reality in which those living in the normal world could not enter. Simply, death had not given them permission because, in the end, it always is in his disgrace to decide whom to invite out on a date.
A human´s loneliness and discomfort are the perfume of death, pheromones of his greatest temptation. They are the odour that attracts him, that he cannot resist, that invites him in, that makes him aware of a person´s keenness to go out for the deathliest of all conscious rendezvous. Yet, in normal life, this wisdom about the presence of death remains a silent wisdom unspoken about, not even a whisper but a revelation that seems only some humans are allowed to confront. And if they do, they generally experience it in the hardest of all possible ways, that is: accidentally and involuntarily starting a dance with death in hell – and eventually surviving it.
There were moments in which I could barely resist his kiss. Death´s kiss which would have meant, well, Death. It is as simple as that. Our first kiss would have been the termination of my suffering and pain. The end of my life in its current form and shape. At times, I was so aroused and thought, easily I would dare the final cut. He was so sweet and smelled great. His dark aura was an attractive sphere, a promise I wished to take. I got lost when his lips were only that little inch away because instead of further enduring my misery, there seemed to be an alternative path out. We just had to kiss. Often, I craved nothing more.
Interestingly, the more my cravings escalated, the harder it became to move in closer. To fill this tinny gap that existed between our lips. I tried harder to attract him, to invite his darkness into my mind, body and soul. On two days, I even dared to bend forward to finally kiss but as I did he, strangely, kept his distance and pulled back, even if only slightly so. He never moved too far, of course, he still was death holding me tight and dancing along. Smiling and staring at me, and with a touch of eternal patience observing how strong I would be. In which of the two possible directions would I pull? Only later it occurred to me that the force to go either of the two possible ways, it would have likely been the same…
Only now do I understand that death was giving me a chance. That he was not greedy but curious. Certainly, he was enjoying the dance as death does – but not to its ultimate. He loved the glimpse of life reflected in my eyes. He loved to sink into this glow and get lost himself. He appreciated the vibration of my soul, my heart still beating, and the experiences I had previously made before engaging so closely with him. He indulged in the waves of my lived memories, rode with me together on the back of wild horses over untamed land in Mongolia and he too felt freedom by inhaling the fresh air as one can only do on high mountain tops. He nurtured and indulged himself in the vividness of life – without taking mine away.
And life there still was. Diminished though down to a nearly invisibly glowing amber, this spark was energy powerful enough to keep the gap between our lips open. To expand and contract at nanoscales, the slightest hint of vigour and pulsation that let me eventually open my eyes.
The first time I dared a look back at death, to face him fully, I could only make up his silhouette. He preferred to stay in disguise, so I had to try again. The second time, I was able to notice the sharp edges of his cheekbones like the ridge of dissected relief they were cutting through the air. Still, his eyes remained hidden beneath the hood of this cloak. Then, the third time, death´s face appeared and surprisingly, in it, I noticed the full, deep and all-encompassing echo of life. Life that presented itself in his eyes: he knew it all, he had seen it and lived through all of it. His eyes in fact were a mirror capturing and reflecting life´s force.
Death and life. Life and death.
At that moment, I realised the two could not be without each other. They are part of the same thing, not two sides of the same coin – no – they are the essence of the coin itself. One arises from the other, whilst its partner is never far away.
Does this sound like a dumb realisation?
For a human not, for a soil scientist perhaps. In soils, dead plant and animal matter is turned back into life. Dead organisms are the fuel for new growth, the soil a reactor. It all cycles – but I suppose, to really, fully and truly tie into the interdependence of all things is nothing one can grasp from reading a textbook or by studying for decades. Feeling the intrinsic wisdom of life (and death for that matter) is an experience. It is not a concept but a sensation. A flow of energy that has to be felt and invited in – and perhaps one can only appreciate its full meaning when having been on an intimate dance with death in hell?
My dance with death continues for that hell is more present than wished, yet death and I have found balance. We keep our distance far enough to not be tempted, to stay away from that kiss but to walk along next to each other as I learn how to live life again with death being an integral part of it. I must not exclude but offer him the space he deserves. I must never again lose awareness that he is there, that he is this silent lover of mine as much as a gatekeeper for the moment in which my life will transition into other organic and inorganic forms. I am kind of ok with that. I have learnt that I do not necessarily have to enforce my death for that it will naturally occur, on death´s terms, one day. When he decides to close in and finish our dance in a final sequence.
Once upon a time, I imagined death to be: raw, bony, dry and brittle to his core.
Now I imagine death to be a gentle energy and a great force filled with the potential for (new) life. Sometimes he still tempts me, other times he scares me a little. The latter of which is a forgotten sensation because, to my surprise, I have started falling in love with life again – some days.
Acceptance. Balance. Flow. I am certain: My rendezvous with death will go on, forever and ever and always, as long as I exist. Wise words for that their meaning will be an integral part of my present-day and future well-being. And so we step on into the next move of our vivid encounter, death and I keep on practising, hand in hand dancing along in a gentle embrace whilst looking into each other’s eyes – eyes where life continues to unfold.
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