I am capturing each of my confused and infected thoughts and emotions. I am nailing them down here slowly, methodically. If I can pin them in one place, make them make sense, keep them from breeding and feeding upon each other, then perhaps they will lose their power. Perhaps they will stop hurting me, which will preclude them from hurting us.
This is a spell of sorts. We can burn this when I’m done and speak of it no more. But first, I will tell you a story…
The seed of my love for you germinated against my will. It was not your fault. You did not plant, acknowledge, nurture, or desire it. You gave off a light. That is all. You gave off a light that warmed me so much I almost believed you shone just for me.
And still my love grew. And still your light shone. And there was a beauty and a truth in that unwanted thing and it was almost enough just to watch it grow, straight and true. I thought if I were patient, if I were quiet, if I could make myself as beautiful as it was becoming, then maybe you’d not be afraid of it or me, maybe you’d want to keep us closer, maybe you’d say I’d done good.
Now this is where it gets complicated and where I drop most of my metaphors. Through a series of strange events too convoluted to reiterate, you and I ended up together. Happily at that. Obnoxiously happy. One could cue in the mood lighting, pop music, and chocolate covered strawberries
I’d like you to let me fall in love with you all over again. And I want it to be untainted by shame or frustration or despair or jealousy. I want it to be something I don’t have to share with anyone else but you. I want my memory of falling in love with you to be unsullied.
I give you sorrow with every sigh. You can almost see the cloud of ache linger like love’s dust after a swift and untimely departure.
There’s still so much to be done. If I blink, I am holding back the years that could have been. I don’t want to see them fall, not yet. If I keep them behind my eyes, I can view my daydreams over and over again in an endless cycle. I can watch the endless possibilites of harmony, of dreams come true, of the uncharted frontiers of love. I’d rather torture myself a little bit every day than give up the dream entirely.
When I stop blinking, the chance for that dream coming true is gone. I just have to find a way to stay awake. It’s so easy to slip into slumber to escape the pain. I’m not talking about your ordinary nightly excursion – I mean joining the ranks of the sleepwalkers, the ones that immerse themselves in things that don’t matter to escape their failures in the one thing that does. If you think you’re helping someone else by sacrificing yourself, you are wrong.
No one is good to anyone while nailed to a cross.
