the missing step

04/01/25

Jan 04, 2025

There is an elephant in the room, begging you to look at it - dance with it, even.

The elephant morphs into a missing step. Everyone says, “mind the missing step!”, but continues to smile at the missing step, reassuring it, “oh, you’re right there, don’t worry. I can see you”.

And one day, you’re a teenager, and you’ve fallen into the hole of the missing step. You don’t know how to recognise something is an absence. For some reason, you stay there. Perhaps it was the way you were treated as a child - you believe you deserve to be there, perhaps it’s how you view the entire world, as a missing step. Steps aren’t real!

Some people even say, “thank you for being in the missing step. Then I don’t have to fall in it!”. And then they tread on you.

It’s also quite comforting, there in the missing step. No one sees you or bothers you anymore, and you know what is coming. Nothing is unpredictable inside the missing step. You know what you’re going to get, and even if it’s damaging, the knowing is somehow more comforting than the not knowing.

Someday, and you don’t know how, you see a sun.

You haven’t seen it for a very long time, or rather, every time you did, you thought it was bad. You thought suns were arrogant, you thought of Icarus. You were always taught being in the light was bad.

This time, the sun looks different. The light looks inviting instead of blinding, illuminating all you could not see. You see the way it curves around the ground, shadows of flowers scattered.

You have stared hyper-vigilantly at patterns for so long, you think you can actually see particles of light.

And finally, you think about how nice it would be on your skin.