Friday, February 26, 2010

Like explaining heaven to sheep

I have never been successful in love. Why is it that I cannot distinguish between what I want and what is actually good for me. My romantic escapades have always been a build-up to the same moment - I’m sitting alone in a corner of my room, staring at my knees, scribbling on pieces of paper, wondering how I went wrong, replaying conversations and songs on loop.

This isn't my first adult relationship but I would have died a happy man if it had been my last. It changed me for sure. It challenged me to stray away from the spiral I had created for myself. What I have wasn't trivial, not fleeting, not something I can replace easily. It wasn’t the kind I read in novels, more the kind that probably won’t ever fade away, even if we were to never meet again.

Sometimes you have this unnatural premonition that something awful was about to happen, that it was gonna hurt real bad, and that you want nothing more than to stop it - if you knew what to stop. But, somehow, events just keep happening around you - swirling you around, the unstoppable tide, like an ant on your sink - you can try hanging on to the ceramic with all your strength but there is just too much water and flows are just so divergent enough for you to not account for them all.

You feel yourself go in.

At first it hurts a lot, the stifling forces stuffing the air out of your lungs, the currents jostling you against the walls as they hurry along, then the pent-up adrenaline kicks in and you feel nothing. Then, after all that wears off, the pain returns, except it's worse than it was before, deeper, more complicated, shredding you from the inside out. You look down and realize this shit has happened to you, and it's irreversible, and you will have a scar forever, and you just scream and scream, but the maelstrom will win.

The crowning part is that I have to smile through my days.

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