Forever January

Wednesday morning I fly out to my car — already late for class — to crank up Grasshopper only to realise she does NOT have enough gas to get me to campus. I acquiesce, admit defeat and steer her in the direction of the gas station.

I get there, hop out of my car and start making a beeline to the store to pay for my gas. As I’m walking inside, I walk by a man that says, “Hey! What do you think about these gas prices?” I pause momentarily to glance at him and say, “The same thing as everyone else.” I wanted to add in, “But Europe as been paying $6-7 a gallon for years, so quit your bitching.” Time was short, however, so I kept that snarky tid-bit to myself.

Then he spouts out, “You’re BEAUTIFUL! I need to date you!”

Let’s rewind, shall we, and examine this man. He’s driving a white van, appears to be in his early to mid-50s, slight beer belly, balding and whether he has all is teeth or not is questionable.

I edge away and hastily reply, “Sorry! Seeing someone!” My mind felt this was a more than appropriate enough time to lie. I continue my hasty path into the store to pay for my gas and praaaay he is gone by the time I get back outside.

But he’s not. He lingered. He stuck around to say, “But I could pay for your housekeeping!” Now, I’m not sure what housekeeping entails, but I said tersely to him, “No, no. That’s okay.” I then turn my back to him, fill up my car with as much speed as possible and leave.

And shudder all the way to school. Creep.

So I feed my hunger by gnawing on my heart strings. Sleep is all I want to do, because in those murky, foggy depths there’s a place where the sun is shining, glistening off the water. There’s glowing warmth that radiates happiness and all the things that send butterflies of love all the way from our feet to our heads.

But then I must wake and contend with the fact none of my feelings are reciprocated. Sometimes I wish I’d never have met you so this pining would cease. I must let these feelings run their course, but oh! what a horribly bumpy, painful course it is.

Then one day, I’ll arise from my bed … and it’s over. The sun will shine through my window just like it shined on me in my dreams.

And the pining will be gone. So smile like you mean it, because one day you will.

I wish there was a way I could fill these hollow insides of mine with something, give me fulfilment somehow. I’ve cut you out, thrown thoughts of you away. And mon dieu I’m so empty …

Even still there’s this lingering, the ghost of hope looming in the corner. (“And if you have to leave, I wish that you would just leave…”) I wonder when the memories of you will dull away, when you’ll be another shadow in the night?

Sometimes I just want to stop it all and disappear. Be a nomad. Be without constraints. Just go wherever the road takes me … Be simply a figure smashed between the Earth and the Sky. And out there, I’m sure, there’s a place where I could lay down my tired head and sleep. Why am I lingering? What am I waiting for?

There’s nothing left for me here anymore.

Love does not make itself felt in the desire for copulation (a desire that extends to an infinite number of women) but in the desire for shared sleep (a desire limited to one woman).

- Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Didn’t you see this is what I wanted to say?

You said you’d break my heart. You’re almost right.

I feel the foundation beginning to crack, the web we built together slowly being plucked apart.

This chapter is coming to an end, isn’t it? Soon we’ll just be two strangers who once knew each other during some other time. And you won’t think of me except in moments of fragmented, fleeting memories where you aren’t sure if you’re awake or dreaming.

I pour honey into my mind to take the bitterness away and wonder consistently why novas always die in the spring — why must (my) love always be unrequited?

I love the idea that once humans were joined together as one. It was an idea stated by Aristophanes — that Zeus took us and split us into two separate beings. And love springs from the never-ending desire to reunite with our other half.

Sun and Earth merging back into one (and every breath we drew was hallelujah).

So I keep chasing your shadows and looking up, waiting for the moment you’ll come back and we’ll be merge once again under the winter sky.

Love is not a victory march.
It’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah.

I could wait centuries.