What is 13?

It isn't what you are thinking, it can't be that obvious, this is not that.

You see, the face of 13 has changed and eluded me many times since I first witnessed what it might be. As a boy it came to me as a metaphor in the first dream I can remember having. There I was asleep in my childhood bed and off into darkness when 13 first spoke to me without words. Laying next to me in my bed was the most beautiful creature that my young eyes could imagine. She had long flowing hair, supple skin and a radiant glow that absolutely melted me. I was in love without knowing what that was. I held her close and knew at such a young age how lucky I was to have her, and the best part is I already knew what to do with such a gift.  My hands played with her hair, caressed her face, they started wandering down her shoulders, slowly down her back and to her waist. That's when my hands stopped, something very cold and empty was now brushing up against me.

I sometimes think back to that moment when I touched her waist as the first time I got to feel what emotional loss, emptiness, sadness, heartbreak and darkness feels like in the world. I felt it in a very tangible and physical way.  The warmth and joy that I was feeling as I held her close to me was instantly replaced by coldness and fear. In a waking state I am sure I would have pulled away, leaped off the bed and ran for it, but in this dream, I wasn't allowed that luxury.  What was cold and empty and shaking me to the core was the rest of her body. She simply wasn't alive from the waist down.  She had legs that moved and reacted to my touch but they were hollow, cold and plastic. As I felt further down her body her legs had big smooth holes that went entirely through her like holes in Swiss cheese. As I felt each hole in her leg, I felt darkness and emotional pain, they vibrated out of her as if they resided there since time began. As beautiful and perfect as I saw her from the waist up, she was the exact opposite from the waist down. I was petrified and felt a sense of impending doom. That's when I woke up.

I frantically looked around, felt my bed, realized she wasn't there and knew it was just a dream. Then it happened.  As I laid back safely on my pillow, something captured me and I had a fleeting glimpse of what 13 might be.  For a brief and lucid moment, I knew that my life was about doing whatever I can to get whatever was above her waist, down and living within the lower part of her body.  To somehow find a way to get the incredible beauty of who she was into the hollow emptiness that I felt inside of her.

How am I supposed to do that? I have no idea. Is it physically possible? Of course not, but it was a metaphor for something that has pulled me along in my life ever since. It has caused me to take paths that I can't see where I am going, experiences where at times I succeed and at others I fail spectacularly but I know inside I must take it.  The crazy part is that sometimes when it's calm and I am hanging out or going for a walk, I will know what 13 is.  I no longer have to look cause it's right there with me, I found it. But soon after I find it,  it always decides to leap away from me and into another person or circumstance, changing it's face just out of my reach and down the road a little bit. I watch it as it disappears inside of that edifice and I know I have to do whatever I can to once again find it inside of that moment.