Flaw Salad

Ah, so you find the ones in shadow, do you? You look for the struggling, withered lot that could use a little light? You bring your tiny flame over, and you think how grateful they should be for this taste of warmth, for this soft, glowing orb?

But you are not the sun.

At best, you are a pitiful similitude, a shoddy representation of something grand and nourishing, something desperately needed, something long missing or, worse, never known. Your light, your little flickering plaything, offers nothing—nothing—to these starving wretches. Still, you shine in earnest.

Melt as you wait, wait, wait for a token, for the smallest gesture of thanks. Erode as they return what you provide—naught. Weep as you wonder why you’ve gone unnoticed, unappreciated, unloved.

Seeking shadow is a path of folly, my dear. What you need is light.

One day, across a vast distance, you will see a tiny, glowing dot, and you will fly there. You will leap into the light of a long-lost stranger, and together you will set a path aflame.

Until then, flee from shadow. Flee from dark dwellers of convex gloom. Flee from the aching wails of persistent bitterness, cries from untouched corners of abandoned channels.

You never belonged there, darling. Run, run—shine—and you will see.