An escape. I often wondered how far and how long I would have to wait, for that sweet escape that most described as love. All until it would present itself; naturally, like a drunk punch in the gut and a knee to the face, and compassion to boot. It’s the compassion that would mostly do me in, the person who’d stick around in the aftermath…only if inquisitive.
The compatriot fighting in the trenches, blown but left with an ugly chuckle and a nod…that’s what love felt like to me. The end of days; the all gone but not me; the I-will-myself-to-be-by-you, sort of love.
I got hit, a few times. In the beginning I was mostly myself enough to hit back with equal ferocity; with surety and certainty, proclaiming through mirthful laughter that better days are yet to come! How does an old soul like me, now feel the youth wither away around him? That strength gone, beaten one final time, and then I experienced something no person deserves to experience: the past.
A girl, a girl who thinks she’s a woman but so far from it; once I was a boy, a boy who thought himself more man than most…but was farther than she was, from her own fantasy. I’m an extremist, she’d admit. Not sharp enough to use her imagination to stretch the extremities I return from now, tired from my journeys. Done with the waves of emotion and love and trauma and all that goes along with this beautiful ocean we call life.
The same mistakes, the same incessant and incorrigible need to shove her heart down the first throat that uttered two words towards her; fear, abandonment, excitement, agency…love. So much has passed, that a lot I’d lost lies restored to me today; dormant neurons spark, a past forcing me to evolve again.
Is it pity I feel, or is it just force of habit? I think it’s mostly pity for myself, the wasted years, the needless dragging of the self through the mud. And for what? Not a soul to understand, not the soul that was meant to be saved: some curses are too difficult to break.
Love, I find you once again…through so many people, through too many people finding me; and I love you; for, your unwavering harassment; for, sincerely refusing to let go; for forcing my face in the mirror.
For, here I stand looking back at myself wondering, who are you that loves me so?
Written on Wednesday, May 12, 2021
Comments