People have looked me in the face and told me that love is a normal human emotion. They say that love is beautiful and anyone who doesn’t see that must be empty. I
never believed them... about the emptiness. Love was like God to me: why believe in it,
long for it, search for it, dedicate your life to it... just so that it can come back and slap you in the face just before it walks away when you need it most. But, I understand now; that emptiness is actually there; but, it’s not a result of the absence of love. Love is still that haunting thing that I’ve never experienced, and have never needed to. But love’s absence is replaced with a horrible endless emptiness. I couldn’t describe it to anyone if they asked. They would stop caring, just like the people with whom I thougth love existed. That’s why I stay silent,. I don’t talk like people talk to me. I don’t need to.
Sometimes, it feels like there’s a lost, wandering person banging his fists on the
inside of me. When this person is sad, he rips at things and I bear the pain. When I am
said, he speaks horrible things and causes the pain. That’s where I learned to anstain from love; there among other places. Then that force inside me got angry, it was as tough thousands of explosions existed within me simultaneously; but I was sealed shut. He told me never to say a word. He said no one would care. He said to keep it to myself. That it was too ugly for everyone else. Too ugly for their eyes, for their ears; so I listened. It wasn’t until later I realized I’d thought all that for myself; there never was a ‘he’ inside me telling me what to do. Hate for ‘him’ turned to that self hate. But, sometimes I was too tired to hate. Sometimes too tired to cry.
Back to love... Another He. He said he loved me when he walked out for good. He
told me he loved me when he cried. He hugged me as though I knew what he meant and
why he cried... as though I was supposed to heal him. She told me she loved me, only
when she needed to hear it back. She thought I didn’t care that it sounded so empty
coming from her lips. She never realized that I saw her tears. She never realized I knew
the emptiness within such words. So, love became symomymous with hard times, with
tears, and with pain. Why people want to feel that, I really don’t know.
In those movies she smiles when he mentions love. I want ant to reach out and
shake her to save her. Save her from sitting eventually where I sit... here on a cold
bathroom floor, the only place for solitude in a world full of strangers.
Another He. So he tells me he loves me. I don’t know what to say. Even if I did, I
wouldn’t be able, my voice is too in pain. When he says the word, it’s like that hated inner person is returning and ripping and whispering those horrible, emptying words all over again. I want to cover my ears and run, like I did when they told me. When I knew it was over for good. When it ended the first time. But that got me here. I don’t want to find out where it leads me this time. The person inside says, just stay silent. He won’t care if you speak, he says, do yourself a favor. Get yourself out... The person inside, he’s crying, so I don’t look as though I am, and I can keep a secret and tell him I feel the same. I don’t know what to feel as I speak the empty forbidden words. Once he’s gone I tell myself I can’t get sucked back in. It’s like two giant hands are holding me back, pulling me back. Keeping me here in the emptiness that suits me just fine. When he asks if I’m afraid I can only tell him that I don’t really know. All I know about love, is how it can kill when it ends. All I know about love is, you can’t depend on it, because it just doesn’t exist.
I’m thinking now about what people would say if they knew I felt about love. If
they’d stare at me with wide eyes and tell me that that’s not really what love is. I’ve heard it a million times, like people are trying to convert me. I really wonder what He’d say, if anything.
It’s an empty world I see now. It’s been emptied of everything. The barren burned
landscape of love is what stares back at me. Like Michelangelo... painting above his head. Paint dripping back into his eyes, causing him to go blind. A lesson is to be learned... we shouldn’t look to things beyond us, like love, expecting them to be so beautiful... when really all they do is come back to blind, and hurt. Some people say I don’t know a thing. Maybe so, but I do know I’ll just sit and stare with only empty eyes at “blissful” romance before me. I’ll wonder where they would be, if they’d seen the parts of love I’ve seen.
