To Devour

...and be devoured.

To devour—, and willingly allow yourself to become devoured—, completely, is truly a unique experience for us humans indeed.

Unique in how the human spirit is unable to bear the weight of such trauma but only once. No matter the degree of self-hatred any mind may potentially reach, none is equipped with the possibility of repeatedly placing itself on a platter for another’s digestion. Like death; it is irreversible. The blessed are spared from ever feeling it at all. We—, who know its face, memorized its hollow sockets where cloud-filled eyes hang in the shadows and can draw their dark swirls from memory—, are forever cursed to feel its warm breath on our napes.

Unique in that it isn’t solely to satisfy a gluttonous urge of gorging our spiritual stomachs with another’s soul, but rather, a craving to consume. Utterly and without pause for logic or reasoning, to consume everything. Their deepest dreams, worst nightmares, most highest-held hopes; it all must be swallowed—, no, choked down!

Unique in that much like Escher’s Drawing Hands, it isn’t enough to stand in pride while ingesting their very oneness. They themselves must be doing the same in return, wearing an identical smirk of self-gratification that we’ve got permanently plastered upon our own lips.

Unique in that we simultaneously become both The Lover and The Loved. And it’s within that exact line of logic where we find our ability to continue sleeping when the sun sets at night. The guilt cancels itself out. We offered up our own bodies for consumption and without hesitation, they eviscerated our layers like lions, one by one, clawing and tearing and ripping us apart, forever digging deeper down until they reached the most hidden compartment of our hearts we hadn’t even known we were hiding under so much soil and dirt. Just like we’d reached theirs. A mutual feast.

Unique in how once that specific door is opened, it can never be closed again. The heart won’t allow it. The soul will change its spiritual composition from that day forward, not unlike the drug addict, we are never the same. Our eyes see through a new lens now. It’s a darker shade, it makes the light harder to see, to feel. Harder, but not impossible. We must look more thoroughly for it. Somewhere, it’s still shining down in our direct line of vision, somewhere that’s a bit tougher to see through the newly descended smoke and ash and dense fog, but it’s there. It’s there and if we squint and remember that what it means to be human is both tragic and beautiful, then when we do occasionally re-find it and feel it once more on our skin, its warmth is that much deeper, it carries that much more meaning and purpose. Precisely because we know how much darkness and frigid cold there truly is all around us, waiting. Waiting for the doubt to creep back inside and whisper through the muddled trenches of our memories; “was there ever really any light at all?”