Morning in the Languor of Bliss

(Sujith Mangala de Silva)

The world awakens in the morning.
I am still not awake.

My eyes are open, yet “I” remain in a deep slumber.
Thoughts exist—but they belong to no one.

Through the bedroom window, sunlight slips in silently,
falling upon an empty room.
A body is here.
A breath is here.
Silence is here.

Yet “I” am still absent.

Thoughts drift like clouds in the sky.
None of them is mine.

“Bro… the engine hasn’t started yet.”
My friend says it again.
It seems like a joke,
but I know it is true.

When I entwine my body with hers in love,
drink in her essence,
let her vitality pour into me,
and in the profound, silent satisfaction that follows,
and when I extend that quiet pleasure
by sipping a glass of wine—
I am intoxicated with myself.

In that moment, the world is neither large nor small.
The world simply is.
My mind simply is.
And yet there is no relation.

There is a body.
There is a breath.
There is silence.

I think that even Omar Khayyam might have observed the world through such a disposition.

By eight in the morning, I lift a cup of coffee.
I light a cigarette.

Smoke curls freely through the empty space.
It is exactly a vessel for thoughts.

They arrive.
They drift.
They vanish.

Yet in that moment, there are no thoughts.
Only smoke curls remain.

No joy exists.
No sorrow exists.
Only emptiness.

Within that emptiness,
I awaken my deepest reflections.

I once thought intoxication comes only from the body.
But now I know—
one can become intoxicated by thoughts,
by the mind itself.

Sometimes that intoxication
surpasses what a drink can offer.

What exists there
is a powerful, languorous bliss.

In that moment, I understand the world.

Yet that understanding has no language.
It is inter-knowledge.
An understanding without a name.
A silence without end.

But by ten, the world abruptly shifts.

Responsibilities.
Duties.
Obligations.

They knock at the door.

I tense.
Warm blood surges through my body.
I rise.

Work begins, as if body and mind move as one.

The engine is now engaged.

And with that,
“I” am reborn.

Intoxication no longer holds sway.
Poetry has evaporated.

What remains
is responsibility,
duty,
obligation.

Then I realize—

Within my inner life,
there exist two worlds.

One—
Nameless.
Endless.
A world free in the languor of bliss.

The other—
Built of duties,
obligations,
rigid responsibilities.

Every morning,
between these two worlds,

“I”
am reborn
again
and again.

Sometimes I wonder—

In that first world,
does “I”
ever truly awaken at all..?