Of late, I have come to an unfortunate epiphany; that unforseen damage was done when I tried to switch off a part of myself.
The memory of a night spent together between the sheets, maybe a year before, was becoming too much to bear. She had just broken up, and so had I, and we were thrown together by a friend into a room. I did not want to take advantage, so we just talked - her to the empty air before her and me to her back. Then we slept. When I awoke she was gone - downstairs, so I sighed and rolled over. Our paths crossed sparingly and before long she was entwined with another. I saw her one last time before she went travelling far away for many months - nodding and smiling and wishing them both well. It was then, as I stepped out through the door, that I pushed the button and lost more than I bargained for, yet less than I planned, because buttons and pulleys do not control the heart.
Nowadays, I remember feelings more than I experience them; as contrived approximations to maintain the illusion of emotional connection, and that was not in the plan. I have committed some horrible, naieve butchery upon myself. I could blame another; some phantom who fled into the night whilst I picked up the knife and scrambled for the lights. But no. It is me, I am sure - trying furiously to deny the will of a powerful beast long tethered inside me that cannot be switched off.
I know this because I never felt it before and I do not remember feeling before it; this sensation forever unjaded against the always-fading. Sometimes, I think this feeling that is so lonely in it's power might be all that is left of me, and I am glad that it is, in a way, because when that button was pressed the feeling survived and something else fell into the darkness; maybe Selfishness and Foolhardiness. Or was it Courage and Bravery? Maybe it was The Opportunity Who Knocked falling hard against the blackness down there - the one in a million chance lying broken in the dirt.
There is not much I can taste anymore, so the memories I have could be bitter or sweet; playing with breadsticks and piggy-backs and cameras at a party when I met your new boyfriend; repelling swans at the waterside when the clouds broke for us - the only sun I saw as I passed through a storm on my holidays; when we were disguised holding hands in the street - my most precious of memories.
Yet precious is dangerous, and perhaps I should have courage and risk loving another, lest I wither and waste in the summer of years I might wish I had treasured.
The memory of a night spent together between the sheets, maybe a year before, was becoming too much to bear. She had just broken up, and so had I, and we were thrown together by a friend into a room. I did not want to take advantage, so we just talked - her to the empty air before her and me to her back. Then we slept. When I awoke she was gone - downstairs, so I sighed and rolled over. Our paths crossed sparingly and before long she was entwined with another. I saw her one last time before she went travelling far away for many months - nodding and smiling and wishing them both well. It was then, as I stepped out through the door, that I pushed the button and lost more than I bargained for, yet less than I planned, because buttons and pulleys do not control the heart.
Nowadays, I remember feelings more than I experience them; as contrived approximations to maintain the illusion of emotional connection, and that was not in the plan. I have committed some horrible, naieve butchery upon myself. I could blame another; some phantom who fled into the night whilst I picked up the knife and scrambled for the lights. But no. It is me, I am sure - trying furiously to deny the will of a powerful beast long tethered inside me that cannot be switched off.
I know this because I never felt it before and I do not remember feeling before it; this sensation forever unjaded against the always-fading. Sometimes, I think this feeling that is so lonely in it's power might be all that is left of me, and I am glad that it is, in a way, because when that button was pressed the feeling survived and something else fell into the darkness; maybe Selfishness and Foolhardiness. Or was it Courage and Bravery? Maybe it was The Opportunity Who Knocked falling hard against the blackness down there - the one in a million chance lying broken in the dirt.
There is not much I can taste anymore, so the memories I have could be bitter or sweet; playing with breadsticks and piggy-backs and cameras at a party when I met your new boyfriend; repelling swans at the waterside when the clouds broke for us - the only sun I saw as I passed through a storm on my holidays; when we were disguised holding hands in the street - my most precious of memories.
Yet precious is dangerous, and perhaps I should have courage and risk loving another, lest I wither and waste in the summer of years I might wish I had treasured.
posted by Ultra Toast Mosha God at 8:47 AM
4 Comments:
I have sat here now for an eternity condensed into a single moment, desperately trying to convey the proper response worthy of this.
And in this moment, my words fail me.
well said. to both.
That last set of lines really drive home the meaning.
It is better to not not have taken advantage. That would not be... now I'm at a loss for words. The right thing was done. Sacrifice. It's sad that the right thing pays off so little in the way we would wish it to. You said it so much better than I could have done.
Interesting. The narrator talks about the road not travelled and opportunity lost.
It reminds me, tangetally, of the Frost poem and whether its ending is sarcastic of scencere.
For my part, I ike to see that there are plenty of summers and plenty of roads to travel. While we might have our fill of the former, we have to take our choice on the latter. But is it a choice per se? We can see different people walking down different roads, but that's not us and it wasn;t on our time, so we can't say we'd experience the path the same way.
Perhaps, then, no matter the compass heading, we have to take our own road and walk it?
The narrator also has a little of the Hamlet edge, the paralysis of analysis, which seems to lead to the sense of opportunity lost. But it's interesting, rather than hesitating, the narrator decided and exercised virtue. So almost an inverse Hamlet in a way?
I often recollect the same way, I regreat me good deeds done and my bad one's unfished. It can be a funny morality at times!
I liked this!
Also, totally first narrative ever!
Woot!
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