| Iris shadow1@cyberway.com.sg Rated G _______________________________________________________________________ There are many kinds of love in this world. One-sided love, unrequited love, parental love, love at first sight ... Can love survive ? Love hurts. Everyone hurts the one they love, no matter how hard they try not to. Love is a war. Passion is the sword that sticks into your gut and twists your throbbing heart. Sacrifice is meaningless. Be careful and learn to defend yourself. To love is to surrender ... and lose. _______________________________________________________________________ Ore no Ai : Mamoru My Love : Protect _______________________________________________________________________ Like a half-opened flower, your mouth parts, delicate petal lips curving dazzlingly in a magnetic smile. My mind numbs at its radiance, recoiling at any thoughts of some gaudy butterfly that would plunge the depths of that flower, stealing its ambrosia nectar. Your smile is a priceless treasure that you flaunt unknowingly, childishly ignorant of the tempting invitation you so recklessly, so impetuously offer to all and sundry, naively unaware of the havoc it wrecks. It is a glowing prize that illuminates my life, banishing the grey monotone of tedious days spent without you, warms me with a vehement heat that is more passionate than the strength of the sun. Like a man parched from thirst, your addictive kisses relieves my insatiable thirst and yet leaves me hungry, aching for more - a cool, icy glass of warmest sunshine. And yet ... like any prize, it is to be won only in a competition. It is more than just a competition. It is a war. Each furious battle among every jealous contestant, vying for a portion of your boundless love, your endless light. Each victor possesively guards your candid gift like a selfish miser who greedily covets more of every piece of gold that he hoards, helplessly resentful, unwilling to share, wanting it to be focused only on him. And yet none of us seem to realize that your guileless smile is a trap all the more dangerous because of its genuine, uncomprehending innocence that disarms us, dissolving any resistance. You brandish this deadly weapon nonchalently, careless like the golden child you are, beckoning to us with a mindless pull that attracts us towards you with a spellbinding force. It binds us insidiously, drawing us unsuspectingly closer to you, an enticing snare that closes its jaws so gently ... inirrevocably when it is too late. Too late. Your sweet voice, your vivacious words, are more than just delicate glass bells tinkling genially in the sunny breeze, more than a bubbling brook chattering merrily as it winds its careless way through the forest. It is a haunting music that thrills to my soul, clinging forever around me like an enchanted white fairy mist, echoes of my own mind. A hypnotic siren song that lures me, enthralls me, a helpless victim to its devastating, seductive power. I dance, mesmerized, to the rhytmn of your eternal tune, a captive marionette, a puppet whose strings are attached to you, wound tightly by destiny itself. I lie. For I am held a willing prisoner. Always my own choice. Your vibrant laughter weaves seamlessly, each note of sheer joy forming a crystal lattice. A labyrinth of perfect crystal shards glittering resplendently in the scintillatingly gold sunlight. Thin, crystallized fragments of joy and happiness. And yet, each delicate, gleaming sliver is deceptively sharp. I become lost in this game of love, bearings disoriented in this crystal prison-maze. Each jubilant sound of gleeful exultance is a dagger-keen splinter that stabs me with flawless, painful accuracy, wounds me with the delirious bliss that fills me. Your exuberant laughter fills me with sharpest ectasy ... so intense it hurts. Your eyes are an endless ocean of sea-blue innocence that drowns me. I float peacefully, in a placid, serene lake of tranquility that reflects the crystalline azure blue of the sky. So as the tides of the earth are controlled by the moon, the waves rise and fall restlessly, lulling me into a false sense of security. Slowly, the buoyant waves of languorous calm that held me in restful repose turn stormy and turbulent. I sink readily into the swirling whirlpool of mad euphoria, heedless, or perhaps more accurately, uncaring of any dangers, diving deep into their crystal-clear depths to find the mysterious core of your very essence that is light. I plummet down, and I know, with certainty, that I will never desire to rise up to the surface again. Your movements are clumsy, filled with an awkward coltish grace, as if still unused to the control of your body. Yet to me every bumbling gesture is infinitely perfect in its very imperfection. The way curls dangle tantalizingly down your shell-like ears, tempting me to brush them away tenderly. The way you adorably wrinkle your small, perky nose in charming, child-like puzzlement. The way you playfully tackle me with an energetic hug, without a second thought, pinning me effectively with your arms ... You are barreling ... burrowing your way into my heart. My soul. Persistent little rabbit. The way the gentle contours of your soft body moulds intimately over my own like a second skin. I want to hold you close to me for eternity, never release this tight embrace, seal any lines between us so that we merge into one. I bury my face in your bright hair, a gleaming curtain of heavy blonde silk, and inhale your fresh, clean scent, a heady fragrance that makes my head spin in dizzy delight. Kiss me and never let go. You worry that you are not graceful, accomplished, competent. I cannot imagine you as anything other than the way you are now, although I have seen the vision of the woman you will someday become in the future. She is beautiful, intelligent, powerful ; everything that I once thought I wanted. But since the moment I met you, I realize my monstrous error. Forgive my words. Never change. I can only think of how much I love you now. Any difference from the way you are now would be too desecrate my private, sacred feelings for you. Remain always my beloved golden girl with hair of sunlight and eyes of sky ... I need no Serenity. I desire only my Usako. I hold you close. Your openly affectionate touch burns me, the sensual feel of your ivory skin, pliant and satin-smooth, singes me with flaring heat that devours me with raging, predatory desire. This primal, elemental fire within me smoulders, fanned by everything and all that you are. I am the proverbial moth, helpless but to plunge into the fiery depths of the scorching candle-flame. You burn with such joyful vitality for life I am afraid to approach, terrified my darkness will extinguish your light, my cold, desperate loneliness will douse out your bright flame. But it persists stubbornly in burning, this flame, a fire that I realize too late, is beyond control. I can't stop ... because I won't. The heat is enough to melt my soul. Never, never cry. Tears don't suit you. I told you that once. Because, when you cry, when tears roll down your smooth cheeks in translucent rivers, your blue eyes great, aching pools of misery, my own heart throbs, twisting with such excruciating pain I would prefer tp die rather than watch you continue crying. When you cry for me, because of me, I feel my black, icy despair writhe, aghast like a wounded animal within my torn soul, a wild storm of grief and guilt that swirls in increasing intensity with every diamond tear shed that stains your beloved face. How does one stem the flow of a river ? How does one restrain the breath of a storm ? Let me kiss the tears away. I am lost within this storm. Your love is terrifying. It is demanding and implacable, an unbreakable string that chains me, an inexorable wave that drowns me, a fierce fire that burns me. The softest shaft of moonlight that pierces right through my soul. I am exposed before you, all and everything that I am laid naked and bare before your gaze. Vulnerable. For the first time since ... forever. It leaves me scrambling for defenses in panic, groping for flimsy excuses to stave off this relentless attack, fumbling for any barrier that will reduce the flinching intensity of your all-consuming love. Our love. Can I trust you ? I'm not sure I can trust myself. My heart weeps at your silent, hurt admonishment for the gaping chasms that you mutely accuse me of digging between us. I fear you. Horror-stricken at the casual thought of tainting you with my darkness ... of diming your heart's glow, tarnishing the brilliance of your heavenly radiance ... Power, Hunger, Despair, Hatred, Fear are merely inky black feathers swirled in an undercurrent drift of a storm, tremulous, wavering shadows cast in palest light compared to this one emotion that fills me ... This chain which I wind tightly onto my own neck. This manacle which I clamp firmly around my own wrist. This cage which I lock myself into. My love. You hold the key. But even if I were free, I would chose to remain by your side always. Your heart clenches mine with its love, effortlessly clutching it into the sweet oblivion of total and complete surrender ... I can't live without you because ... You fill me with life. Mamo-chan. Mamo-chan. The words trip from your tongue like a song of love, a poem too beautiful for anyone else to utter besides you. I am not Tuxedo Kamen-sama, Neo-King Endymion, Tsukiagge no Knight, or even Prince Endymion. Ore wa Chiba Mamoru, Tsukino Usagi no koibito. Love me ... itsumo. Aishite, Usako. Ore no namae wa Chiba Mamoru. To protect, guard, defend. Yet it seems I cannot protect myself against you. _______________________________________________________________________ Ai no Monogatari. The story of love is long and varied. Within every person there exists a personal tale of love, bitter or sweet, filling the blank pages of this never-ending chronicle with every shade of the rainbow spectrum. The legend of love continues with the spinning of each tale, small or great. As a spinner of tales, I hope the words of your own tale of love remains forever imprinted within your heart, the echo of the storyteller, you and your love, always with you. Love hurts, it's true. But to forget love is the saddest and most painful story in the world. - Iris shadow1@cyberway.com.sg _______________________________________________________________________ Japanese Glossary : Ore : I wa : am namae : name koibito : lover itsumo : always aishite : I love you mamoru : defend monogatari : story _______________________________________________________________________ Flower Myths : Iris Faith, Wisdom and Valor. Hope, Light and Power. Eloquence, Message and Promise. Emblem of the Warrior and Flower of May in Japan. Since Iris is the Greek goddess of messenger of love, her sacred flower is considered the symbol of communication and message. Greek men would often plant iris on the graves of their beloved women as attribute to the goddess Iris, whose duty it was to take the souls of women to the Elysian fields. ________________________________________________________________________ |