Peripherals

The back-light of my phone is flashing 3 am at me. I'm tired, but can't seem to get myself to bed. To switch off the light, to lie down and close my eyes... to ask my mind to stop, right now, is like asking me not to breathe. It's essential I grab hold of the minutes. To not surrender to time lost. To not slip away.

Through the windows, subtle tones of amusement find their way in from a party next door and muffle my thinking like a blanket of snow muffles sound. Softening my train of thought, slowing it down and bringing it back to me more clearly than before, I realise I've perhaps not as much been thinking, but feeling. An intense clarity of emotion that words could never support in thought.

Everything is perfect, just the now. All emotion thrown in the balance. And for once, the scales don't tip. A fragile equilibrium to be savoured. Right now.

I'd write it down. A guidebook for days to come. To remind us how to get here. But feelings can rarely be owned. They grace you with their presence at their own desire and leave but mere traces upon their leaving. Elusive. Like peripheral visions, they can't quite be looked in the eye. But they linger. And for now, I linger with them.

I'm tired. But I revel in time gained.