The invisible worm
that flies in the night,
in the howling storm,
has found out thy bed
of crimson joy:
and his dark secret love,
does thy life destroy."
- William Blake, The Sick Rose
I had, in my days of youth, the idea that there existed a perfect sort of love. A love that, when given range, could give a man wings. This love was my hope, my salvation, my one and only ambition.
This love does not exist.
In its place stands a myriad of emotions which float between the tangible and the theoretical. The simple and the sublime.
"In love at a distance, so much of life has to be invented." - Joyce Carol Oates
But what of life at a distance? What happens to a man who can't seem to get a grip on the reality he has been presented? Why is it that those of us with the most simple desires are often those who are left wanting?
Too often people try and forget love. They try and bury it. Try and hide it. Try and stop it from being what it is. I've never understood why anyone would want to get rid of love simply because it hurts. Anything that is worth anything hurts at one point or another.
I think every love I've ever known has hurt, some more than others of course, but every one at least a little. Never stopped me from loving anything or anyone that had some love coming to them, mostly because I knew that one way or the other it would all work out in the end.
"There's been a time in the evolutionary history of everything that works where it didn't. A time in the history of everything that is known when it wasn't." - T.O. Hob
We are so much better than this.
There is that common misconception that love needs to be something other than what it is. That love is a business in which hearts and mind are currency to be bartered and bargained with. People never remember that love is the sort of thing that makes up its own rules as it goes. People always forget that love is unique.
It's for that reason alone that I can love you, and you can not even know me. That I can love someone in ways they wouldn't even understand. It's why someone else's love can be confusing, and why your own love can be downright frightening.
It's why I can say all of that and not feel the least bit sappy, or naive, or romantic.
It's why love can be cold.
This a lesson on life and love from a man who doesn't even have the faintest practical understanding of either.
"Who are you to tell me who I can and cannot love? Fuck you! Who are you to tell me I can't love them? Fuck them! I can love them even if they don't love me!" - Kong
We judge the world too harshly sometimes and other times we simply judge wrong. How is it that we can ignore the folly of those who choose wrong when it is simple to choose right? But we can not forgive those who fail to do right when what is right is near impossible to discern from what is wrong?
Is it because we too do wrong when it is all so simple to do right? Or is it because we would like to think that, despite our histories, we would be able to make the right decision in the face of near insurmountable adversities?
Is it just that we are fools?
"I ain't never had much use for God, and he ain't never had much use for me. But if he needed me all he'd have to do was holler and I'd be there in a jiff. I much expect he'd do the same for me." - Lazarus Jones
I'm not preaching. I swear. I'm just saying. The reason that perfect sort of love doesn't seem to exist is that we won't let it. We're just like that. I can't explain it anymore than you can.
But for some reason I'm constantly trying too.
Maybe it's so that when I figure it out, you can too. Maybe you can ride my coattails into something neither one of us saw coming.
Who knows? Certainly not me. Not yet anyhow. Not by a long shot.
We're going to try and be funny. Try and be witty. Try and be our old selves. We're going to smile, and laugh, and act in ways we never have before just to see what it's like. We're going to continue to be hung up on a past that never happened, a present that is happening all too fast, and a future which could go in so many different directions.
"It's not the end of the world. It just feels that way." - King
So I stand here and shout out to deaf ears, all the while wondering how many words I have to type before I break through that barrier. How many things I have to say before I'm heard. How many emotions I have to experiene, how many thoughts I have to think, how many people, places, and things I have to learn to love before I can figure it all out.
So I stand here, and if, but for a second you stand with me know that I will stand with you when your time comes. When you stand up and make your decisions...I'll be there, if for no other reason than I can be.
I don't know what any of this is guys, and I don't know why I feel the need to put it here. But I do know one thing...
There is no light...we run on.
No comments:
Post a Comment