The first time I saw Her I was breathless. I was breathless as if I had never had full lungs before this moment. The first time I saw Her my vision was blurred by the spectrum of light and colour that haloed Her head, but they were somehow made less by the intensity of Her exhausted eyes as they looked upon me.  In Her arms, I was at once imprisoned and freed. I was held captive. Captivated by my ineffable need to be close to Her. She was my creator. She gifted me my very soul and we both knew it. She was Life. I was Living.
         Then something changed. When Life looked at me her eyes no longer illuminated with hope and joy and love. What I saw I had never seen in her before but I would later come to know it as “fear”. Not just fear. There were flecks of pain dilating her pupils as they pressed against her anxiety-green  irises. Her shoulders bowed in a way that some would call “defeated” but I sort of imagined it to be the posture of praying when there is no “God” to pray to.  I felt her despair echo agonies within my own body. There were times I felt I would burst from my own skin or perhaps be crushed by it.  The agony had a strange effect on my mind. Everything I saw that had once been beautiful was now a torment. I could feel a darkness reaching for me. There were times The Darkness seemed a better option. It would hum so softly, like melancholy whispers. It would pull me in deeper and deeper and I could feel myself fading away from Life’s warmth. Then I would hear her sing and her songs were as a beacon tethering and guiding me away from The Darkness. My heart would flutter and my lungs would feel shocked from my gasping just as it was the first time I saw her.
            I am told that it is common for the world to seem crueler just before the stars save you. So it was for me. I was taken from Life. The Strangers held me strangely. The Strangers took my clothes and poked my naked body with strange instruments while speaking strange words and wearing strange robes. I was held captive in a strange plastic prison. I wept for the loss of Life while The Strangers bruised my body with plastic tubes and stole my blood from me to then be replaced by substances unknown. I would never know despair like this again. Always before I would lose hope completely Life would return to me. She would smile and sing of sweeter times in a kinder world while tears choked her voice and fell from her chin to my cheeks. I soaked them in gladly. I bathed myself in her smell. I breathed just for her musical exhalations as they washed away the agony inflicted upon me by The Strangers. She promised me we would someday escape this. She told me of the future. She wove tales of growing up and old together far away from The Strangers. Sometimes I could even sense the remnants of glowing hope pressing against her exhausted eyelids. She was not made a liar. One day I woke to find myself  lying in her arms and in our bed as if the world hadn’t moved. Had I dreamt of The Darkness and The Strangers? My nose wrinkled instinctively at the thought of cold, smooth plastics.  I looked about me, being very careful to not disturb the peaceful scene with too much movement. As my gaze drifted along the sun set of Life’s hair while it rested on the horizon of her body I thought to myself that there must be nothing as wonderful as her. I suddenly felt something warm and wet drop upon my cheek and realized she had been watching me just as intensely as I had watched her. Our eyes met through her tears and I saw light there. Not simply reflected but as if light were born just behind her pupils.  I knew that she and I would never be separated again. I was her soul, and she was my heart, beating outside my own chest. We breathed each other in and let ourselves spin with the Earth. In time I would call her by many names, “Mama” being my preference. But in moments like those she was simply Life and I was simply Living.