“When You are Born Missing
half of your heart, I tell you
this world owes you
nothing. The palmettos & pines will not belong to anyone but themselves, no matter who owns the ground
beneath them. You can’t even cry, your breaths coming in rasps. But you linger,
not knowing how to run. I tell you
there are miracles, when miracles are everywhere & nowhere. When we’re not lost, so much as lost
to the world, looking for a new way of living
that doesn’t involve blood or the need
to breathe. Linger a little longer, I beg
you. Maybe what you’re missing isn’t
just a left ventricle to pump blood
to your lungs. Maybe it’s not knowing how a pulse divides us, as you wander
across boundaries between living
& not living, to touch me again, as if dying is almost easy.”
(noun) An untranslatable, German word also known as eigenlicht, describing the color the eye sees in the dark, in absence of light; loosely translated to intrinsic gray: dark light or brain gray. Eigengrau is perceived as lighter than a black object under normal lighting conditions because contrast visually surpasses brightness to the human eye. For example, the night sky is darker than eigengrau because the stars intensify its blackness, thus providing a high level of contrast.
literally: eigen (one’s own) + grau (gray) = own’s gray
