I don't know what "love" even is. But when I'm with you, I find myself coming closer to the definition of it. All I've really known it to be is that it's horribly painful, debilitating at most. Perhaps, all the time.
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Even with this, a larger, deeper void, is continuously dug in my heart with every passing day.
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The hollow, empty space below, is a fitting place for my carcass.
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The whole I dig is my own prerogative. It's a self-inflicted harm that I'll maybe never recover from. If I had to pick an appropriate death, my best resting place, it'd be under the soil. A patch to lie in, the only thing in the world just for me. All mine to own.
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I might never be loved by anyone. I might never be wanted or needed, actively sought out. But I can give myself to the world.
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The universe, the plants, the fungi, the soil. The mycelium will eat me up. The insects will feed on my remains. Flowers will sprout from my rotten flesh, my decay their fertilizer.
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At least they want me. That I still have a purpose, even in death.
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No one seemed to like me when I was still living. When alive, I was better off being called nothing, for I was nothing.
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I exist not only in the light, within a gaze that only warmth reaches. I am both light and dark—the one who sees, and the one who lays themselves bare.
I am both on the giving and receiving end. I am the generous and the poor. I am a beggar willing to take any scrap, even from a cloaked love.
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You only beg for the things you don't already have. If you do and still beg, you become your desire. It's you; you're its vessel. You're not you, you are it. It speaks as you, you've become one: I want more and more of it.
I know love does not exist. "It" is convoluted.
It will exist all the same regardless of what I say. Excruciatingly. I want more and more of it.
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It claws away at my bruised heart, ripping itself out and forcing itself back in. It leaves me with an ache, a hunger that will never again be quenched. It is on this stage I stand and in these seats I sit watching myself perform perfectly and clap as the audience who loves me.
For how much longer should this painstaking performance go on?
Forever, I'd hope. For in others, there is no forever. Asking the universe to prove something to you is a losing game. Can't I answer my own question?
I myself am the test. I can assure that eternity is attainable.
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It will be me, again and again. I am the one who brings myself flowers and receives the bouquet wrapped in my favorite color. It is tied by a neat pink ribbon, cut into perfect length. The ends of the flower stems are pruned in a slanted line, their petals invigorated and alive. The flowers are my favorite, and I thank myself for considering what I wanted, and am ever so touched by the fact I even stopped to consider what my favorite flowers were. And to even pick each one so carefully, a message conveyed through the flower arrangement? How thoughtful of me! Thank you, me, I say. I say it back, thank you, you!
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Because at the end of the day, it's always going to be me. Never really palatable for anyone else, but always good enough for myself. No one's received me in full. Received this in full, the beast that I am. It's fine, it's all all right.
I cry again and again with no one to comfort me but the flesh of my own palm.
by 🤍