one saturday in april we talked for the last time.
i didnt know at the time we were talking that these would be the last words spoken between us. if i had, there were other things i'd have said, things more meaningful, about how i cared for you, how i treasured the brief time we spent communicating our souls to each other, and how much your presence meant to me, in short - how lucky i felt to have known you.
really, we only knew each other for something less than 900 days, which amounts to roughly 15 percent of the total days ive spent on this wearysome little ball of mud we call home. a mere fraction of the total time i'll spend here('god willin' and the crick don't rise!). in this short span of time, i came to understand that we were friends, and also much more, or at least so it seemed at the time. there was always that language and cultural barrier, which also, i guess contributed to the ultimate deterioration of relations between us and consequent parting of ways.
i wish i could have told you, so that you'd understand and Know, that nothing i ever did was with the intention to hurt you in anyway. most of what i did was only done out of love and desperation, i guess. like the little child who had a bird that he treasured, and when it seemed about to fly away, he grabbed it in his hands, and trying to keep it, he squeezed the life from it and lost it anyway, thus tragically and ironically completing the tragic cycle of his own self-fulfilling prophecies.
it all fell apart, i guess, when i first confessed my feelings toward you and also my own weaknesses, foibles and particular phobia. all of that seemed to be greeted by you with the same outpourings of joy that the local village would reserve for the appearance of a pack of rabid dogs. from that point, at least to my mind, everything seemed to decline to the point where you held me in contempt for my weaknesses and loathing for my confessions of love.
i feel lost without your daily presence and re-assuring words of friendship. you made a very deep impression upon the pages of my life, and i see 'ghosts' of you everywhere - all the little things that remind me of you are like ghosts that remind me of what i've lost - sort of like the phantom pain that amputees are supposed to feel when they lose a limb.
the most ironic thing of all is, we've never met nor spoken.
most (including you, apparently) would think i was insane to have developed such a strong attachment to someone i'd never met. sort of like the tale told of an inmate of a lunatic asylum who was asked by a visitor to the institution how he came to be there. "well," he replied, "i thought the people outside were mad, and they thought I was mad. they were in the majority, and, here i am."
indeed. here i am.
the human mind has an amazing capacity to deceive itself. most call it 'hope.' it's a cliche, but also true, that it's only when you have no hope that you are totally free. for 21 days i lived on the hope that i was somehow mistaken, and fearful lest i repeat the mistakes of the recent past, i did little to communicate my despair. when i finally did attempt to communicate in some words my horror and despair and sense of utter loss, my attempts were feeble and unworthy of the deep and heavy turmoil of emotions that coursed through my heart and veins. sometimes, i find my mind so crowded with thoughts and fears that i am unable to put thoughts together in an even rudimentary intelligible fashion. (as anyone'll see if they stick around to these letters long enough!)
anyway, the pits of hell open up again tomorrow to swallow another week of my life in useless toil for some creatures of the leisure class, so they can spend their inherited wealth (which is nothing more than the accumulated unpaid labor of generations of men (and women!)), and my weary eyes are not only tearstained, but bloodshot too.
i ran across this little zen gem the other day, tried to send it to you and discovered that my hopes were indeed misplaced and your email address was no longer accepting my screeds.
Impermanence, aging, and illness
Do not give people a set time.
One may be alive in the morning,
Then dead at night,
Changing worlds in an instant.
We are like the spring frost,
Like the morning dew
Suddenly gone.
- Kuei-Shan (771-854)
