Synesthesia

Early in my sexual career, unrelated, but fortuitously, I went to the Smithsonian to see the gem exhibit.

Something wonderful happened in my unconscious, where the gems and their colors burrowed deeply in my dreamiest brain files. The way trauma does, only in this case, to my great luck, sparkling and lush. 

How sweet it is to see jewels captured in glass boxes. In each room a distinct offering of ecstatic creation. 

Science laughing in baubles of crystal, charcoal and quartz. Citrine, creedite, beryl and apatite itself. Spessartine and banded iron, fire agate and Dom Pedro aquamarine, as if the stones had been named by a lovesick geologist.

I saw my new light refracted in every surface.

I wandered from room to room, collecting awe.