“You know it is you I see at evening /
Before the light goes.”
— Sara Berkeley, ‘Less Than a Hundred Hours’
Where do I begin? The roses growing everywhere, even next to the drive-through windows of fast food joints — their ubiquity as persuasive as subliminal messaging.
The dusty steps upwards, racing impending dusk. The fallen trunks of trees, and the curious cracking sound of ones still standing against the wind. The rushes of colder denser air accompanying disappearing globes of gold light. A distant blue, the color that has haunted me as the physical form of longing. The unaccountable and unattainable quality of seemingly unchanging mountain ranges on the horizon. Sweet and sour laughter and overheard conversations on bicycles. The suddenly shy streetlamp, turning off as the dark settled across the wooden bench.
Then the night. Fragrant with the deepest shades of green. Colors turning binary. It was a gentle lack of light rather than a cloaking darkness, perhaps. My misplaced yet paralyzing fear, and in response, your belonging yet incapacitating touch.
“Men,” you grinned. “We always use all our adjectives.”
- Originally published: Adjectives for the night