SPACES

When we talk, there are spaces. Spaces that are voids in the room - that leave holes when we aren't speaking - or pause, break off our words, let things go unsaid. When the speaking is light, you let the spaces go unnoticed. I laugh them off as trivial pieces of our lives that contain no meaning - We pretend that less meaning than air rests in those spaces.

This is a lie.

We feel it when the speaking we do is grave, carries wieght, makes us feel heavy. When our banter is important, we see those spaces hovering - waiting above our heads for a break in the conversation so that they may sneak down, rob us of our next words. We chatter mindlessly and glance nervously at the spaces - those awful looming voids. If, heaven above forbid, a silence comes down upon us, we look to our feet, our folded legs, wringing hands. We do not look at the spaces.

One of us might say something worthwhile, and then the talking starts up again for a while, and we discuss things that we beleive to be of importance - all the while watching the spaces in the corners of the room to make sure that they stay put. We do not want the spaces to descend into our minds, our hearts, our delicate possessions.

I do not understand why we do this - you and I, but I wish we wouldn't. Perhaps it would be liberating to sit and gaze into your vast, open holes. Perhaps we are afraid that if the spaces descent into our minds, we will have to think about things while in the presence of the other, and our counter-part will understand the thoughts rushing past our eyes. Perhaps if the spaces detach from the crevices in my bedroom and decend into my heart, you will see the space and fill it. Perhaps I would like that. Perhaps you would like to do that for me. Perhaps we would both enjoy filling each other's voids very much....

FILLING

Your spaces could compliment mine - I can see it. Where the spaces have taken me over, you have avoided them. In the holes that the spaces have dug inside you, I find the means to fill them back in. However, the dastardly spaces remain in the room...hovering...waiting, ever so patiently. They know we
will keep pretending, pretending we don't see them - and this is what kills us. We wish the spaces away with our heavy speaking, but they do not leave. We feel them constantly. They will never disappear completely. The spaces are dishonesty, lies, all manner of things left unadressed, unused, uncared for. The spaces and vaccuums are everything we do not deal with, and that is why we chatter so, lest our strong front should break and provide a window behind our eyes, the nuances of our personalities: Love, hate, pure, raw emotion that we taint with fancy words and psychological theories.

The spaces are our pasts, our hopes, dreams and fear of the future. The spaces teach us what we don't want to know about ourselves - be it good or bad - and that is why we feel them so acutely when we speak of things that have meaning. Because one meaning always leads to another, and if we do not carry on the meanings ourselves, the spaces will carry them for us.

Humans, flesh, bones, electric transmissions and synapses compile into the beings that we are, but every being has a void. These voids hang around us, waiting to reveal themselves. These voids are the spaces that we cannot lay eyes on. And, once in a while, a mildly prophetic, intuitive compilation of synapses and electric impulses comes along that can pull our spaces out of the air and read them before they have even entered our skull or pulsed behind our eyes. We call these people wonderful. We call them terrifying. We call them freaks and goddesses and angels. I call them gifted and blessed. You call them scary.


You call me scary.