Toward a More Perfect Thirst

If your eyes are not deceived by the mirage
Do not be proud of the sharpness of your understanding;
It may be your freedom from this optical illusion
Is due to the imperfectness of your thirst.

                                                                   -Sohrawardi

I feel I am consigned to an exhaustion of thirsts.

So imperfect was my thirst once that I scarcely knew the difference between one emotion and the next -- thought, in fact, that the shadows they cast were interchangeable. Maybe it is because the emotions I excelled at were of the indifferent kind. Maybe they were interchangeable; my 20s were sloppily oozing ennui, despondency, malaise... meh.

Now there is nothing so passive as that. I am never so detached and clinical. I have a kind of clarity that I lacked before, but I am so deeply deceived by mirages. I will them into truth. I have a very full secret life of secret friendships (Bless your heart! You're there!) and hallucinations of the ghost of a 4 pound baby. A flash of light. She is always a flash of light, reflections of glass, blinking LEDs in my peripheral vision. Momentarily, I am deceived and it is not the deception I despise, but the evaporation of the mirage just as I'm getting close.