Soon Enough

11/14/14 Concerning air

I looked at the email with relief and agony. Why was she doing this? Why couldn't she let the dead horse be? My torch still flickers. Time was beginning to extinguish the flame. Absence was making my heart learn to beat for itself. Her message was brief ,cordial and friendly, but in a way that made it clear that she was done with the funny business. She hoped my family and I were doing well. She thanked me for the trip. She let me know she was entering a solitary phase. I suppose she might have felt a pang of guilt for dropping communication. Perhaps that, or perhaps as her mind cycles through memories, I would surface. Closure. We both need that. I need that door slammed in my face, dead bolted and welded shut. But she cracked it open to whisper a hello. If I had sense, if I had the will power of a flea then I would bounce off and out. Block the email, delete the message and wash my hands of it all. But no. So I reply. Just the surface issues of life with a little nod to things she had touched on in the email. But now the memories, but not just the memories. It's the hope that crushes me. The futility is certain, and yet I don't seem to grasp this certainty within my soul. My mind gets it, sure, but my mind has nothing to do with my longings. My emotional being, the part of me that is driven by biological instinct and—no wait. I don't buy that. It might be a biological instinct to procreate that my soul just doesn't comprehend—the impossibility of it I mean—but its her mind. Shit. I feel it coming. The part of me that wants to praise her. The part of me that contorts her body into a amorphous mass of disgusting matter and doesn't care because her mind, her soul is so beautiful, so utterly part of everything I long for. No. Because I know it would all end in ruins. There is no “happily ever after” in any scenario that involves me and love. I'm selfish. I have a temper and I'm not a happy individual if I feel trapped. I'm not good at compromising and am so honest that the truth of what I feel will surface immediately. So what to do? Should I ask her to poof me out of her life again? The thing is I know that this is just a tactic. If she feels that I want to be deleted, then maybe this will draw her to me. Fucked up, right? I mean what do I really want here? I wish I knew. If she were to love me with the same love that she loved my friend, I know I would be disgusted. Not at first, of course, these things take time. The chemicals of “love” need to die down. The familiarity. But even as I write these words I think of her smell. God, I could live with that smell for eternity and never wish it out of my bed. Bed. Hmmmm, and what to do when I'm not in bed? Yeah. I don't really know her. I mean I do, and I don't. So what to do? Get to know her? Fuck. I know me. Before I got to know her I would fall so head over heals in love, and I do mean that in the literal sense. I wouldn't be able to really get to know her as she truly is. Mantras of praise would cloud my judgment. Clouds of doubt as I tried to better myself would rise up giving me ulcers. My God though, she is beautiful. She is absolutely everything I can never have. No, I know you. You're thinking that maybe I stand a chance if I would only grow a bit of confidence. Nope. There is no chance. So what should I do? There is little that I can do but wait for a mundane response. An email that tells of her life—just the surface stuff. But this will make my heart soar. This will be the wind to my sail and the hope that I long for. The hope that I detest. The hope I long to extinguish. So I need to repeat to myself that I don't really love her. It is only the idea, the smell, the mind, the brief encounter that has already passed that I love. It isn't her. I love her. I hate loving her. I want to turn it off, but where is the switch? Slap! Perhaps I enjoy the misery of wanting the unattainable. This isn't true. But why then did I respond so readily? Why did I not delete the email before reading it? Why can I not just... be. Without her. I am not happy. No, and no one, no individual can make me complete—make me whole. It's been a long time since I've been in love, but not long in the sense of eternity. The thought of the perfect mate, which is to say my soul mate, is decidedly ridiculous. It's biology, or so I like to tell myself. But here it is: If I'm not happy being alone and know that it is not in my cards to make someone else happy... well, there it is. I suck. Self loathing and a weak spine is nothing to offer. Suicide by days numbered. Let the ones I love die and then let me. All is pointless because death comes and then what? We'll see. Without her, we'll see, soon enough.