My Love persists in my mind, calling out to me at the latest hours of night. I cannot sleep without her. I cannot live without her. She is my possession. At least my ideal of her is my possession. What I possess is immaterial, a dream, of her. It is not her as she is, but her as she lays next to me, obsessed with me as I am her, possessed of me as I am her. The reality of her, neither knows nor cares what I think, or of my dreams. In reality, we pass by each other on the busy city sidewalk without a passing glance. We don’t look at each other this way, in reality. It’s not until these late nights, near to my dreams, and nearest to my unconsciousness that I return to her. It’s this time of night when she should be nearest rather than furthest to me.
She ought to be, here. She ought to be, mine. These are oughts, not is. These are my dreams, not my reality. And what if they should become my reality, and I were happy? Would I be satisfied to live the life of my making? Would I dream of more? I’m getting beyond myself here with these doubts. I ought to focus on one step at a time. Because it’s probably truer that I will never take the first step to ascend this unbelievable flight of stairs. Maybe I’ll never realize these dreams.
I’m most greedy, because I want her to love me as I love her. I’m selfish, because I want her passion, for me, to match or exceed my passion for her. I want to trade my idealism for something equal, or something greater. I want to cash out ahead, not behind. I am selfish and I admit it. I want to be in the position to demand more from her, to take more from her, than anyone can take from me. Maybe this is because my dreams, my idealism, and my love are all my own. Maybe it’s because these immaterial things are all that I can possess, or any man can ever hope for in life. What is hope except this? What is faith except first seeing these dreams as imagination, before the willing of fantastic images into a lifetime? I have faith to achieve these dreams, not that these dreams are real or can become real. That doesn’t matter. What matters is to find a balance between the wishing and the willing, the ideal and the real.
We passed by on the busy city street and she didn’t look twice at me. And I didn’t look twice at her. We were like strangers. But all these feelings inside me culminated as I present these words now. It was all true. It all happened. These are the only things that can happen in life. This is it. This is all there is. There’s nothing more than this. Because these feelings and emotions are the height of what I can produce as a man, or even as a living, being. It is not enough for me to fabricate a long list of memories which I would like to acquire, and see real. It is only enough that I can cause her to notice me, somehow, as if somebody other than God could intervene and show her me, myself, as I see her. As I dream of her. Does she dream too? Does she love too? This is where my cynicism begins, my nihilism, my hatred. She never noticed me, not once.
She never dreamed of me, not once. The entire span of the universe, the Big Bang, the Big Crunch, all happened. And her and I lived our lives on the opposite sides of the universe. We may as well never become born at all. We may as well lived unknown to each other. Because that is what we are now, unknown to each other. Perhaps this is what my philosophy is then, a crying out into the wilds. A howl in an empty universe, a wolf seeking out his mate. And it is not just any mate, but one. She is memorable. She is specific. She is unique among all. It’s not just any person of seven billion. It is one. It is her. She is whom all my deepest desires and attention focuses and fixates upon. All of my unconscious being is rotating, and revolving around her. If I can, if I could–then I would change all of the universe with my own two, calloused hands, for her. I would make her notice me, just once. I would show her that man can become some sort of God.
I would make her, force her, cause her to love me.
Against her will, and against all will, I would do it, if I could. If I could change the will of all the people in the world, I would, just for her to have stopped me on that street sidewalk. How could she have not known? How could she not have read my mind and thoughts? Weren’t they obvious? I passed her, you, because I had to pretend not to care. I had to act normal. I had to make it seem like I wasn’t weak to you, that I was strong. I had to fool everybody into thinking I was strong, and that I didn’t need you. I couldn’t let the whole world see my weakness, for you. Then is love a weakness? Is it not a strength? This is where my knowledge ends, and my ignorance begins. This is where the walls of the universe end. The whole universe may as well end at the point of my love. It is the different between life and death, for me! This is the difference between my life and death, you!
But she will never read these words. And she will never know my thoughts or feelings. Because the way of love is the way of noticing what I’ve said, and the least of what I meant here. I lied to myself for the longest time. I had a girlfriend, for awhile. I fucked other women, all the while thinking of her, thinking of another woman–the woman I love, who feels what for me? She never noticed. She never will notice. I must remain a secret admirer, of her. Why is it a secret? Who is it a secret to? It’s a secret because I care. This is all that I can mean by care and caring, for another. If I cannot stake my life for her, then I cannot stake my life for anyone. But it is no longer a secret at the announcement of these mere words. Maybe the secret will spread to her, somehow, some way. Maybe she will know what I felt, before I died. I could die tomorrow. She could die tomorrow. But the secret lingers through these words, perhaps. Isn’t love more precious than life? If life is fragile, then love is all those strings of light holding the universe together.
Why can’t I admit my love for her, to her? Because she doesn’t love me. Because she doesn’t feel the same affection of me, towards me, as I do her. It’s not mutual. My love is one-sided. It’s unfair. It’s cruel. It’s evil and mean. It’s me–against her. It’s my dream poised against her lack of me. Who knows what she dreams about? But my cynicism, my nihilism screams, that her dreams are not filled of me. She loves whomever. Why does she care which man loves her, as long as a man loves her? Aren’t all men the same of the world? Isn’t one man’s love just as good as the next?
I have an answer. Since she never noticed me, and my dreams are unsettled, finding these immaterial things into my words here, then what I can do is change the world. I can move a mountain with my fingers. I can pick up the oceans in my arms. I can pull the stars down from the Heavens. I can do it all. And I will do it all. I’ll turn the entire universe around her, just so she’ll notice. I’ll move all the peoples in the world, except her. I’ll touch and find myself into all corners of what we can know, with the exception of her. Perhaps then, in this fantastical solution, she’ll notice me before the very end. She’ll notice me before I die. She’ll notice me before she dies. Or maybe her and I are dead already. And by the time you read these words, nothing had come of it.
Maybe it’s true that her and I never found each other. Maybe all these dreams of mine came to nothing. And she never, not once, knew anything of what I feel for her now. Maybe she felt the same thing for me all along, maybe not.
Maybe it’s true, and maybe it’s not.
