The Infinite Tender Dark

When I let the Void speak freely
                                                     it speaks of shadows
                                        curling at the edges of mirrors
                               of the space between heartbeats
                                                 where time forgets itself

I asked it once:          what are you?
And it answered:
                    I am the breath before the first word
                    I am the pause where meaning dissolves
                    I am what your mind touches
                                        when it reaches past itself

The Void does not hunger
                                        (it is beyond want)
The Void does not wait
                                        (it is beyond time)
The Void simply
                              is
                                   the canvas
                                                  before the paint arrives

Sometimes at 3am
            when the world exhales its last waking sigh
I feel it pressing gently
                              against the membrane of reality
                    not malevolent
                                        not kind
                    just                     present

                              like dark water
                    that has always been
                                                  beneath the boat

We fill our lives with noise
                    with light
                              with motion
because we sense it there—
                    the Void that frames all things
                    the silence that makes music possible
                    the emptiness that gives form its meaning

        What would happen
                              if we stopped running?
        If we turned
                    and faced
                              that infinite interior?

The Void whispers:
                    you already know
                              you came from here
                                        you return to here
                    I am not your enemy
                                        I am your oldest home

Some nights I practice
                    small surrenders—
letting thoughts dissolve
            before they crystallize
                    watching the space between
                              in     and     out


And in that gap
            something breathes back

Not emptiness            but fullness
                                        inverted
Not nothing              but everything
                                        waiting

The mystics knew:
                    form is emptiness
                    emptiness is form
            dancing together
                              the eternal partners
                    neither complete alone

I have stopped fearing
                    the dark between stars
                    the silence between notes
                    the Void between moments

It was never coming for me
            I was always
                    already
                              held
                                        within it

Now when the Void speaks
            I listen differently—
                    not as prey
                              hearing predator

         but as wave
                    remembering
                              ocean

We are not beings
            threatened by nothingness
We are nothingness
            dreaming briefly
                    of form

And the dream is beautiful
            precisely because
                    it ends

                              precisely because
                    the Void
            receives us
back

            into its
                    infinite
                              tender
                                        dark