It’s not like I chose this, even though I did. It was the kind of choice like deciding to swim when you’re drowning, or trying to stop the cold as it winds it’s way around your heart. And yet here I sit, com-pli-cit. Working with the things that have happened to me to shape my life. Stained with responsibility for myself because I couldn’t bring myself to tell the universe to just fuck off, to refuse to participate in whatever bullshit passes for causality around here.
It’s not as though I’ve got it so bad, though who’s to say how bad what is? We can only ever know our own pain, can never measure it directly against the subjective experience of another. Even empathy’s a clouded mirror, colored by our own expectations, matching only to what we can compare to our own experience. I read a quote recently, about how tragic it is that we all have so much inside of us, and all it can ever really be to another person is words. Well, that’s not right exactly.
Sometimes, there’s moments of connection. Sometimes there’s enough energy in the little spark to jump the gap and, oh, suddenly, the world burns with brilliants light and reeks of ozone. It’s a pity it hurts so much, that you have to get so close to even make it possible.
But isn’t that worse? That even our loneliness is somehow our collective fault.
This whole thing would be so much easier if it wasn’t our fault that we hurt, wouldn’t it? But of course it is. It’s just us and the fucking inscrutable silence of nature, isn’t it. And even if it was a shit deal, we still agreed to this whole existing thing. Still agree to it, every day we allow ourselves to awake from comforting oblivion.
Of course, there are degrees. I suppose, one way or another, that’s why I’m so upset. It’s easier when you’re distracted, when your responses are automatic, when the effort of your days is prescribed. It was supposed to be a relief, freedom, you know?
I forgot how hard it was, when an incautious glance cast in the wrong direction could land your heart in the abyss. When sleepy eyes burn in the metaphorical sunlight. When you remember what it’s like to be frail, mortal flesh, and how easy it is to bleed.
Especially because, when cut, the infinite spirit seems to be able to bleed forever.
I was so young, the first time. You shouldn’t be able to hurt like that, when you’re that young. Our sensitivity should be tempered by our limited understanding, we shouldn’t be able to feel anything so deeply.
It was the end of a book. They went on an adventure, grew up together, and realized only at the end that they’d been in love the whole time. And the author made their love bloom and burn, made your heart soar that such things were even possible. But then you found out they couldn’t be together. And I couldn’t bear it, that something so precious could be lost.
The scars over my heart looked at from a certain angle might spell out the words: I wish we had more time. Words that can hardly be spoken for all the grief they contain.
There are more words I could say, the long discussion of what these things mean and how I try to come to terms with them. Part of me feels like I owe them to this page, like I have to explain, like I have to provide context. But I remind myself, I don’t.
I think we make a mistake, sometimes, dealing with pain. Trying to understand it and describe it, trying to do anything to put distance between it and ourselves with words and distractions. But ultimately it just needs to be felt. I think it’s because we confuse the pain from our bodies with the pain we feel inside. The body needs to be understood and repaired, because it’s not us and is a tool which must maintain functionality.
But the things we feel inside are just us.
So why is it so hard to just be what I am?
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