by allyssa + vallejo
♥
She would lie
on her bed
and dream.
Of a world where she would never hear a child scream,
save for the moments that felt thrilling and enlivening.
Like, on a rollercoaster.
Or, opening presents
on Christmas morning.
Where people
felt free
to enjoy
their bodies,
their sexuality,
their emotions,
their being,
their unique
way of
loving.
Fruit.
A world where people would enjoy
peaches and pineapples and pears
for at least the same amount of time that they would
complain about the weather, or
how so-and-so and so-and-so
have been spending
a curious amount of time
together.
Why, she wondered
did people care
so much
about
the lives
of others?
Did they even care?
She thought the word “care” had been misused.
People had forgotten what it means to care.
To care.
To give flowers
for no reason.
To walk
with someone
through a
difficult
season.
To commit
high treason
against the
stay-as-you-are-don’t-be-a-star
status
quo.
(She thought everyone deserved to shine.
To shine, to be brilliant.
We are all made of light anyway, she would say.)
To care…
To care…
To carry…
She knew we were all carriers.
Of story. Of wisdom. Of messages. Of emotion. Of ideas.
Of each other.
She knew we were reminders for one another.
Always, reflections.
And only light could do that.
Reflect.
The
succulence
of
being.
Her life mission.
To master it.
She sucked the juice out of every moment.
She saw it dripping
from other people’s conversations,
other people’s words.
She would ever-so-politely ask, “May I have some of that?”
And she would slurp and swallow and suck,
and sometimes she would forget
how inappropriate it looked
to those who
didn’t know
how to
savour
anything
anymore.
But, savour, she would.
Somebody had to be doing it.
Keeping the art of savouring alive.
(No one was teaching those classes anymore…)
