A paw reaches up / by Tahlia Roper

He taps my arm because I guess he can sense that I'm barely holding my eyelids shut in defiance of the morning.

It's time to get up.

Time to turn the water faucet on for Haroldo.

Time for the world to rush in and for my brain to make a nice arrangement of what it thinks I can handle seeing.

Everything is constructed new but the same.

I had wretched period cramps in the middle of the night and had to stumble in the dark to the Advil. Avoiding light so that once the Advil kicked in I would be able to fall back asleep. Another stumble to find and plug in the heating pad, then back to bed to endure as a potential world worked on ripping itself from my body, renewing the option again over time.

Every month I am new.

This year has been one for awakenings. Sometimes the spiritual path feels like a trap because below every layer of awakening is a world that you'll never see or access in the same way again. People you can never indulge with again, energies permanently avoided.

And I know that it's a good thing even if it sometimes feels contrary to the norm and isolating.

I'm making kissing gestures at my plants. I'm writing love letters to the moon. I'm falling in love with the underlying current, avoiding the surface.

Walking home from places that I don't want to be and wondering if what I'm doing is aversion or a peaceful protest for myself.

Only time will tell.