I don't know why I would have thought there would be room inside this whale for secrets, but what do I even know about being inside a whale? It's not like this happens a lot. I guess I just thought that, in general, there's an awful lot of room in a whale. Should have been one of the biggest benefits of getting trapped inside the largest mammal. The thing is that I'm just so incandescently angry, all the time, because the world is on fire and my cat is dead and everywhere I turn there's someone making everything worse instead of better. You would think there would be enough space inside this whale to keep all of my anger, but it's getting awful crowded in here even if it's just me. I might not reach all the edges of my skin but sometimes it feels like I could light up the world.
The other day I was on the escalator up from the train after a lovely dinner with a beautiful friend and above me, echoing through the station platform, someone was singing "When Sunny Gets Blue". Canonically, "When Sunny Gets Blue" unexpectedly out in the world is one of the few things that instantly makes the world a little sparklier. "When Sunny Gets Blue", two cocktails and talking about books, when an animal invites you to pet its belly. Sometimes everything is perfect. And while I ached around a space that sharing used to live, for a moment the hurricanes in my hands quieted.
But it's a foolish thing to think that the hurricanes in my hands are gone forever, to think that there's a time in which I won't destroy the things I touch. To think that a whale, not even one made of ancient roman lead, could keep any shadows to itself.
Whale fall is the best option sometimes, just giving the dark and the quiet time to reclaim bones and brains and all the worst of our best intentions.
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