Do I Dare Disturb the Universe?

There was a time when loneliness and lack of tender touch opened her to another. 

There was a shaking, a rumbling in the pull. 

They were on a precipice,

Pulled by fascination and lust and love and a desire to put a hand through the fragile fabric of their world. 

And so they met, talked, laughed in what would become their café. 

They listened to music, they teased each other. 

He watched her sleep. What greater tenderness is there? 

All the while, their feet felt the edge of the cliff. 

They walked as if they were free, but they knew they were not.

Commitments, other hearts piled up like storm clouds around them. 

Finally, one day they knew. 

They felt the solid earth under their feet begin to slip away. 

Their next step would be into thin air. 

Buildings would crumble. Blood would flow.

They would strain the world. 

They stopped. 

They allowed time to pass— skin to grow over the jetting bones, too exposed— their sharp lines written in poetry, tucked into the pages of books.

Afterwards, they could occasionally talk and laugh and embrace a friendship that never abandoned them.

Years later he sent a note.

She read his words about quiet moments when his grandchildren slept over. 

All of the Christmas cards piled up— the years of day to day to day. She felt the tremor—the damage a disturbance in the universe might have caused.

Their cafe still stands, the skating rink under the hotel room where he watched her sleep. 

They pushed through, they glimpsed beyond. 

Perhaps they were able to pull a fragment of all that outside magic back into the world they chose. 

Perhaps it lines the coffee cup. 

They see glimpses of it in the morning light— miles apart— connected through the urgent magic of daring, just for a moment, to feel what lies beyond.

Written on December 24, 2020