March 23, 2010
2:47AM
Most people don’t think men love as much or as hard as women. And most men would agree. But for me, it’s so not the case. Right now, at this moment, I sit here writing and crying because I’m loving so hard. Loving someone with my entirety which is uncharted for me.
I’ve been walled in, gated. I’ve been assaulted by cynicism and heartache and then all of a sudden, this strange and powerful love infiltrated every barrier. Every defense mechanism that my years had afforded me. I was suddenly ten years old again, naïve, hopeful…open.
But again, here I sit crying. Crying because it hurts terribly to love and feel loved, yet not be able to be with that person. The waiting, the questions, the uncertainty is at many times beyond unbearable and I wonder if one man is truly meant to carry such emotion. How does my body contain the fire of it all? The inferno of love, lust, passion? It’s not logical in the least. I’m even starting to wonder if it’s healthy.
Sometimes I wish I could just sleep the pain away, and the thoughts. Fade away until I can be with the one that I love. I’m not talking about suicide, not in the least. I’m talking about emptiness, apathy. Feeling nothing would have to be more peaceful than feeling every possible facet of love all at once and not being able to express it adequately.
I write in this journal because I had to do something. I needed to find an outlet, short of drugs and alcohol, to escape. And if not to escape, to cope.
At times I stand in the mirror. I stare at myself and I say, “Jaylen. Why love so deeply? Why feel so unsensibly?” And I never have the answer. I don’t know why, I just know how. Although, even the knowledge of how is not knowledge in the traditional sense. It’s more a feeling, an emotion. I know how because of the fact that I am familiar with love. Love does not answer why in most cases. Love is the answer to how.
How is it that I, a dashing young man if I do say so myself, can wait on another human being for an undetermined amount of time? How is it that I can smile even through all the hurt that this affection has caused? How is it that even as I sit here weeping and feeling a chasm form in my heart I still know that this person is who I want to be with?
Looking back at the last paragraph, I guess you could replace how with why but I rather not. For truthfully, how and why are not all that different. In most cases, if you find out how you can also determine why and vice versa. In my case, the answer to both questions is pure unadulterated love. Simple isn’t it? Not really. Love is a four letter word with an infinite amount of intricacy.
Is it not love that makes a Romantic hopeless? The search for the seemingly unattainable. The desire for the reality of fairy tales. But even fairy tales had their hardships. Before the Sleeping Beauty found her prince she had to be poisoned and near death. Before Rapunzel was rescued, she was enslaved in her own home. Disney movies show you the journey to love, but all we seem to remember is the “Happily Ever After.” Love does not stop at the wedding, that’s when the true test begins.
Anyway, I’m babbling now. I should be getting to bed. I have to wake up early in the morning. I’m going to go lay down now and hopefully I won’t drown in my tears. Alicia Keys sings a song called “Try Sleeping With A Broken Heart”. It’s not really all that difficult once a broken heart is all you're used to.
7 comments:
You always manage to construct phrases that stay with me. Your final line that it's easy to sleep with a broken heart when that is all you know (paraphrasing please forgive me) was poignant and sobering. So much so, that I am going to deviate from my usual pattern. Instead of analyzing the technical aspects of the piece, I will follow in the footsteps of your subject and respond from a place that has little use for quantification, reason, or order. I will give voice to the intangible.
To love is not a very difficult task. What is very hard is the recognition of that emotion; the simultaneous act of taking ownership of it while giving it away to someone else to hold, nurture, protect, and harvest. I think the difficulty emerges from the fact that although we give it away in the hope of receiving those blessings, love can be dropped, stunted, violated, and left fallow. So we are left yearning but fearful.
We climb the heights of passion sometimes slowly other times quick to stand at the precipice that overlooks paradise but we are afraid to enter it because it requires us to set foot off of the mountain we have spent so much time climbing and to free fall with only an all consuming hope that some how we will float or lean to fly and make a new home in heaven. That is the dream of love that sustains me at least.
But as you know. I don't sleep much and therefore have precious little time to dream.
And I don't like climbing mountains or heights and alot if other shit that I used to paint my poetic picture.
When you climb you get dirty. You bleed. And by the end of it all you tend to end up looking a hot mess. Not to mention that in my metaphor the only options you have I'd you manage to get to the top are to stay at the top of the mountain probably with some sense of accomplishment, but alone and probably hungry. Or you jump, and learn the same lesson as icarus that you pobably should have kept your feet on the ground, fuck what you heard.
I must confess I have never climbed all the way to the top before although I have found some really nice ledges and caves that had decent views and gave me a moment to catch my breathe. Sometimes I don't think it's worth it. That I should just get comfortable and settle on my little ledge and call it a day.
But, what the hell. I ain't got shit else pressing to do, so I might as well check it out. Even if it takes an entire lifetime to reach the top a part of me wants to get a glimpse from the heights for myself. And worse case scenario I will have a fantastic platform from which to ask the universe. "What the fuck? That's it? Hell, I should have staid home and made a sandwhich."
So keep climbing.
(shrug)
What the hell else do you have to do today?
Keemy,Keemy, Keemy. I am so glad u r a writer. I hope that writing all that out helpsed u feel at least 1/10 of 1% better~ I know u well enough to know that you feel things profoundly. And I hope you wouldn't want to live any other way...for better or worse, it's truly a gift to be able to FEEL.
Hugz, Calvin
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