Deserts of Sadness and The Infinite Love

(Lawrence Aki of Halawa Valley and his Taro, and his Land, 2009)

I was five when I first fell from great height. I got the wind knocked out of me, and I struggle to breathe. It was the first time I thought I was going to die, lying there on the grass, such a peaceful day in a peaceful place, it felt scary but it felt right. Relief came to me with that feeling of something which had been taken was now being returned. I was allowed to live again.

I remember reaching high, I remember the texture of apple tree leaves, and rotting apples. I remember slugs drying in the sun, and how I killed them by leaving them in my secret spot. Of all of the countless cuts and bruses, I think of the heart of a child broken for such silly reasons. I blame sadness. I can hardly remember my childhood. I blame you too. And in the end, I blame myself, kicking pebbles with my foot, pocket in hands, being foolish, being dumb. I have a heart, yes, I have a spirit on fire, hot hot red. But what have I become, with all this knowledge and all these threads. I feel hollow to a child, I see a smile as a canyon of the grandest and I try to aspire to. I see you as someone of love, someone who bares the scars and tears of a broken bird, but strong, as I hold your arm, strong enough to take off in full wind, and light enough to fly far far away.

Once I was traveling in the desert, I wrote the sadness words of my life. My mother told me we were coming close to where aliens would run across the road, she said we couldn't stop. We didn't. I stopped writing those sad words. For aliens, yes, for my curiosity, even more, and what of the possibilities I probably asked myself, there is an universe before me, in a creature running naked across the road, in a child's mind, and in a fool's heart. If I could tell that boy anything, I'd tell him that love is more than me, and more than you, it will take us higher than we had even been, and it will drop us from even higher heights. It will hurt when we fall, and sure there will be broken things, but you and I are strong, our hearts, they were made to be broken, over, and over. And I am sorry, I am sorry I will put you through this boy, but you and I have too much love, and when it spills, and when someone slips, we have to pay for it. With the only thing we got. You are love. That's all that matters. And then I tell him, that we have each other, and end it there.