what my christmas lights do

There are no dark corners here. 

How the gold of each small bulb dances and reflects on the shiny covers of my old books to the far corner, against the purple rose necklace I left hanging on my lamp, along my old orange-brown table so that I may only guess its darknesses.

I don't see darkness.

Bright enough to see a spirit. Not bright enough to wake up a late-night, sleepy but floating mind that writes these prose poems. 

Under the right lighting, I can tap into who I want to be at that moment. How incredible that different colors and brightnesses make me feel the world differently. 

How reliant I am on my eyes to move my mind and mood and attitude. For I am a creature.

I just wrote some letters tonight. New ones and started old ones. Everything is stamped. Now it's just getting these folks' addresses. I felt like writing these really belated letters because of the golden colors touching my forehead. 

A head pat. Half looking like my college dorm memory. Half making the room look like somebody else's room in a Christmas cottage painting. I sleep here.

I sleep here. And I hate it. I really hate turning off these pretty lights and seeing absolute darkness for the first 15 seconds, scurrying to my bed and hiding behind a plushie.

I hate waiting for my eyes to adjust. Something could be moving and I'm just alone, figuring it out. Eventually, the outside light of my neighbor's would move weakly through my window and light up the tip of my room. 

If only there were more dust in my room, so that when light travels, I can see its path. So that it might light things along its way, instead of just the wall. The room might be brighter then.

But in the morning, even at 11, barely noon, I turn on my Christmas lights. 

I open just one window's blinds. 

I mess around on my laptop.

And then I am transported into another atmosphere, the one that the movie plays at the end of a teary moment, the camera zooms out, exits the window out into the night and there you are, the viewer, enjoying the lighting of that space you were in only once you've left it. How easy it is to find light in darkness. As much as you yearn for it. 

But without getting too deep, this is how I like it. 

Feeling powerful and in control of my life is easier than I thought; it's what my Christmas lights do for me.

Thank you lights, for your exceptional power. Thank you me, for remembering it. :)