I loved that man from
the moment I laid eyes on him.
God what a cliché.
But he we was, thick chaos
incarnate. He was sloppy, messy, unfashionable passion. He was raw
hurt, with a smile on. Though I would spend a long time pretending
that my attraction to him was meaningless, a passing incantation of
my ability to love anyone, time is the ultimate leveller. It proves
truth in remarkable ways. I am still unable to escape the visceral gravity
that pulls in my heart towards him. His memory
wins me over like Christmas, how long after you stop believing, does the memory of joy and anticipation linger?
It would be easy to write it all away, to create some beautiful allegory about
our differences but, despite which aspects of it would be true, what
I felt for him was what I had been searching for all of my
life and didn't know it. Now watching it disappearing from sight behind me, as this unnavigable ship drifts on, I ache not for the companionship or the support,
not for the alleviation of loneliness, or loss of friendship, no, all
these things will find me in time; I ache for the discovery another human spirit worth beliving in. I ache for the moments when I believed, in the realness of
love.
I have believed, as it becomes easy to believe, that love is a fallacy. That
it is the contrivance of greeting card companies and pampered women
and disillusioned teenagers. My values have always been cast and recast again upon the echelons of intelligence and privilege and I have believed that that you should never need someones love. That all that matters in this world is to
be somebody, to be something, to create and say and do something of a
higher and higher merit, depth and understanding. Those are the
values to which my life was ascribed. Love, like life after all, was for the
taking because I deserved it. Because I
was in some way - particular. This genealogical hypothesis,
this innate moral compass of destiny is a burden and a curse; as much
as it is a pillar and a touchstone.
And then it happened.
Wrapped tightly in his strong embrace, sheltered from the cold pattering of ceaseless raindrops, huddled together in our small patch of solitude I found something, something I didn't know I wanted and something I never believed I was meant to have. To be home again, in the fragrance of his movements, the subtle wit of his grin, the grimy taste of his hard days. To be the thing, the one thing in his life that burns so bright and so sweet that he could lick his lips a thousand miles away and still taste it. I knew he was always there, deeply embedded in the fabric of my body, from the nights we spent lying together our minds interwoven in tangled whispers of past lives and future aspirations. But I was stuck, woven into the failure of my anger and mistrust. Stuck in the reassuring fortress of my stubborn defenses. I thought I was dancing around, what I couldn't see was taking me alive. With the melodic sizzle of a pad of butter down a hot pan I slid into his arms, into his life and further and further away from all the hopes and expectations I had covered myself in. All the hard edges of my past, all the whaling cries of 'girl misunderstood' melted away, because I was the girl loved by him. Loved with ferocity and tenderness. Loved until the light shone in the night and the moon and stars lit up the days and I didn't know what was up and what was down and where I stood, all I knew was the deep, calm, levelling force of his presence; and the way his eyes drooped when he was tired and the way his voice sounded when he was happy and the way he tied his boots and rolled his cigarettes. I knew the feel of his last kiss in the morning, his proud heart, his dirty finger nails. I knew every inch of him and the time between each beating pulse. And I knew how much these things frightened and excited me. I wanted to drive myself into the cliff face of his being because he was beautiful and I wanted to be beautiful too. Lovely in the eyes of someone who knows no motive, has nothing to enforce and nothing to prove. Someone whos loves, truely.
Wrapped tightly in his strong embrace, sheltered from the cold pattering of ceaseless raindrops, huddled together in our small patch of solitude I found something, something I didn't know I wanted and something I never believed I was meant to have. To be home again, in the fragrance of his movements, the subtle wit of his grin, the grimy taste of his hard days. To be the thing, the one thing in his life that burns so bright and so sweet that he could lick his lips a thousand miles away and still taste it. I knew he was always there, deeply embedded in the fabric of my body, from the nights we spent lying together our minds interwoven in tangled whispers of past lives and future aspirations. But I was stuck, woven into the failure of my anger and mistrust. Stuck in the reassuring fortress of my stubborn defenses. I thought I was dancing around, what I couldn't see was taking me alive. With the melodic sizzle of a pad of butter down a hot pan I slid into his arms, into his life and further and further away from all the hopes and expectations I had covered myself in. All the hard edges of my past, all the whaling cries of 'girl misunderstood' melted away, because I was the girl loved by him. Loved with ferocity and tenderness. Loved until the light shone in the night and the moon and stars lit up the days and I didn't know what was up and what was down and where I stood, all I knew was the deep, calm, levelling force of his presence; and the way his eyes drooped when he was tired and the way his voice sounded when he was happy and the way he tied his boots and rolled his cigarettes. I knew the feel of his last kiss in the morning, his proud heart, his dirty finger nails. I knew every inch of him and the time between each beating pulse. And I knew how much these things frightened and excited me. I wanted to drive myself into the cliff face of his being because he was beautiful and I wanted to be beautiful too. Lovely in the eyes of someone who knows no motive, has nothing to enforce and nothing to prove. Someone whos loves, truely.
I know that in time I
will care less and less. As the memories fade and grey, the thought
of his eyes staring back at me tear my soul to pieces less and
less, I will convince myself, as we all do, that I have no
regrets, that I did the best I could at the time. I will convince
myself that it was never meant to be. . .
And I will be
wrong.
And if I
never find it again,
I will die
with those thoughts in my head,
and the
memory
of his love.
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