In other apes, it's from behind, but in humans, in me and in you, the top of the cervical spine enters the skull from below. This facilitates upright posture and bipedal gait, freeing the hands. The hands can then be used to carry or fabricate or manipulate objects: food, weapons, tools. People.
Darkness hovers between our faces. As distance increases, so decreases brain temperature, so thins blood oxygen, so diminishes ocular acuity. Sometimes I imagine tiny eruptions, sparks, fireflies, between us, but it's fiction. It's only the wind. The darkness between us remains fact. If only I could measure its opacity, temperature, depth, duration. How long? How long will this continue?
Is it permanent?
The base of the skull balances on the top of the spine in such a way that more of the skull is in front of the spine than in back. The extensors keep our heads, necks, backs, legs upright in gravity. The inherent imbalance in our systems keeps us always in flux, always in motion, always… compensating. This lack of balance means that a tiny movement of the head, even just of the eyes, can restore balance to the system or allow it to reposition and recover in another posture. It's dynamic.
There will never be balance between us.
You will always have the upper hand, even though for a while we had a kind of dynamic balance. I know I had some power over you, or we never would have… intersected. But the darkness intervened. Sometimes I fear the darkness may swallow you whole, and as you know, I don't fear much. It has no logic. It's a bundle of biochemical reactions to keep us safe in our caves, but you know and I know, given the givens we have, fear can't keep you safe.
And believe me, I know the attractions of darkness.
The darkness of your hair, the darkness of your eyes, the smell of you in the darkness. The darkness behind your eyes. And those flickers I imagine in the darkness.
Some air, some light, just a glimpse of light between us, real light, not something I've dreamed up, may cure the blight in my heart. But I pray, and you know I don't pray much, I pray that light will infect you, metastasize and overwhelm the dark. But that's ridiculous. You are what you are.
And I love what you are.
But I dissolve into what you are.
If I shift a little, turn my skull slightly on the top of my spine, I might get a better balance, a different perspective, so maybe I can stand on my own feet.
Just this once, much as I want you to do it, I have to rescue myself.