This post decided to be red...and black too...
I don't remember what it feels like to be in love.
By this, I don't mean that I don't know what the feelings I am currently having are. I am happy & terrified; content & restless; sure of myself one minute & devoid of certainty the next. I smile & cry, sometimes as much in one day as I had in weeks past.
I wish that I could call him. Someone who would tell me how not to fuck this up, and how to not be fucked up by it in return. How not to be in love, if that is what I am, without at least the slightest possibility of a healthy return of love.
But the terrible consequences of February once again make themselves known. Once again, I twist, ruthlessly tossed to the wind, at the loss of the one person on whose honesty & regard for my own personal truth was not to be overstated. Only in the area of us did he frequently, and with such final, disastrous consequences, did he err. Otherwise, he was an ever-fixed mark to which I could direct my gaze in times of uncertainty or doubt.
Truly did I love him.
He was my partner and my guide in so much of life (even when he was about the business of living his own), that to be here...now...without him, feels like falling all over again. Though I am not in such despair as I was, and I try to remember the little things that he would tell me (the good things), I am sure of my inequality to the task of deciding this business on my own.
Should I stay? Should I go? Should I run? Should I walk?
How often can I be so alone without some significant damage being done to my truer self? I fear the loss of my own good humor, my own way in the world. It should seem strange that I would want, or need, the guidance of another to find the port in the storm, but every ship looks for the lighthouse...lest they crash against the jagged rocks and go down in the storm. I feel myself precipitously close to those same reefs, even as I write this down.
He needs me, of this I am certain. Whether or not his own countenance will admit it freely, he needs me more than even I may be able to withstand. He would care for me, without reservation, if only he would let himself. He admits that he likes me against his better judgement, against his better reason (though what kind of endearment that might be is still not decided).
But I? I am different now. I cannot love in that way anymore, or at least I do not think that I can. To love one for so long, so completely unrequited, is far beyond my tolerance. I have tried that path. I have failed. It broke me so that I hated instead of loved, to the worst possible ends.
So I destroy my little bits of happiness every time I open my mouth. I push at him. He pushes back. I cannot imagine that we will survive a direct assault, and yet, with each passing moment, I am more and more certain that I will die if I do not move forward. I will be no man's receptacle, for no man has the right to think me worthy only of his trash.
But God...I am lonely.
