Masterminx

I read through some of my entries from one year ago. I used to say interesting things. I spent more time in introspection and reflection than I do now. I was brooding and sad, but I was also falling in love. Despite the joy of such events, the stress compressed me. I was forced to internalize all of the happiness I had found until it melted and drowned beneath the self-loathing and malingering of my slowly failing marriage. I could never let the smile betray me. I could not let the light find its way out through my eyes to shine through the dark shroud of my home life.

I had to swallow the song in my throat and crawl so that no one would know that he had taught me to fly; this man that I love, and had begun to love so dearly a year ago.

From the shelter of my self-absorption, I watched the world with the eye of a lover and spoke of it with the lips of a poisoned philosopher. I envied all that I could see, and all that could see him when I could not. The rains fell from the sky to remind me that I missed him. I loved the rain because it set me apart from the rest of the world because I was thinking of him.

In that time, all of my thoughts were poetry and love songs. Every cloud in the sky carried the hope of isolation and sweet distraction. I danced in the shadows and slumped in the light of day, but I lived. My whole life was compacted in a single heartbeat. My heart lived inside the walls of an elevator, frozen in fear as I stared at my shoes. Nothing in the bounds of the infinite universe mattered so much to me as those few seconds of descent, trapped in the magnetic rapture of proximity with a force greater than my life. A simple ride to a courtyard where I would pray for the moments to stretch out infinitely. I would rattle within my frame, full of anticipation of a brief embrace. A momentary touch would set alight a flame in my breast that could coax sunflowers from the earth in mid-winter.

This old-fashioned notion of love may seem unlikely for someone like me. That's what the one, the one, can do.

I wish I had more time to see the world the way I did before. My heart is no less filled with love. There are no fewer wonders in my every day. I caress the world with the eyes of peace and satisfaction, and celebrate the flight of birds and the grace of butterflies feeding voraciously on purple sage. My tales, sadly, get told in splashes of conversation that are never recorded and barely heard.

I should take the time to make love to my memories more often.
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