Radiohead

I dream of an aquarium I have never seen,

a vast mausoleum of water

where the sea lies buried behind glass,

breathing softly beneath dim blue light.

I do not know who should stand beside me.

Only that there should be someone.

A figure fashioned from understanding,

from comfortable silence,

from the strange companionship

of two minds wandering the same dark corridor.

We would drift through the halls

as though we were thoughts

inside the skull of some sleeping giant,

passing jellyfish that glowed like forgotten prayers

and stingrays that sailed overhead

like fragments of midnight torn loose from the sky.

Radiohead would whisper through my headphones.

Its melodies would hang in the air

like ghosts reluctant to leave the earth,

and every note would sink into the water

until the entire building seemed to pulse

with a sorrow too beautiful to name.

Perhaps neither of us would speak.

The fish would do enough speaking for us.

Silver bodies would flash through the darkness

like lost memories fleeing the reach of time.

The sharks would move beyond the glass

with the certainty of old regrets,

their shadows gliding slowly across our faces.

And still we would remain.

Not because there was something to say,

but because there are rare moments

when another presence is enough.

Outside, the world would continue its noise,

its endless machinery of obligation and hurry.

But in that submerged cathedral,

time would loosen its grip.

Our thoughts would be allowed to wander,

to consume us gently,

like the tide swallowing footprints

left upon an empty shore.

I think that is what I desire most—

not conversation,

not romance,

not even happiness.

Only a quiet soul beside me

while Radiohead mourns somewhere in the distance,

while the creatures of the deep circle endlessly

through their artificial ocean,

and while we sit beneath the wavering light

feeling very small,

and somehow,

for once,

at peace.