Injustice

As you’ll answer it, take heed
This Slave commit no Violence upon
Himself. I’ve been deceiv’d. The Publick Safety
Requires he should be more confin’d; and none,
No not the Princes self, permitted to
Confer with him. I’ll quit you to the King.
Vile and ingrate! too late thou shalt repent
The base Injustice thou hast done my Love:
Yes, thou shalt know, spite of thy past Distress,
And all those Ills which thou so long hast mourn’d;
Heav’n has no Rage, like Love to Hatred turn’d,
Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorn’d.

- William Congreve, in The mourning bride, 1697

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To my love

You were there, joyously apprehensive, frightened of what the commitment held, for it was such a big step to take to trust another with your soul so soon after the first.

I was there, timid and frightened, wondering if rushing was the right thing to do but willing to take whatever chance necessary to drink up more of your enthusiasm for life and your reassuring promises, but with a feeling like being poised atop the pinnacle of the highest roller coaster, trembling at the thought of ending one life to plummet toward the unknown.

We were there, sunlight reflecting on our cheeks as we tilted our heads to avoid the glare and listened to the quaint man’s tales of submission. You, he said, were submitting to me. I knew that would never be true. Your strength was always apparent, despite your gently soothing words and voice. I wondered whether that strength was a good or bad thing but knew that love would mean it would never be used against me.

The day was rather uneventful, no witnesses to our promises and no celebration. It could have been any other day. Birthdays beget more reverie. I knew the piece of paper was something you didn’t want, but it was the only way to have what you did.

I arrived to no fanfare, no joyous reuniting of kindred souls, no you. It was strange to have come so far to be met with so little. To believe in fate and destiny and signs and not have heeded that first important omen was foreign to me and only possible because of my trust in you. You had won my unwavering trust, something no one before had managed.

Life moved, slowly at times and quickly at others, through a maze of difficulties and joys and desires. The first with whom we shared our life struck the blow that caused the initial fracture. He should not have been there, but his presence was important in shaping our future. He left, but he had already influenced our destiny. Our course was set in stone, it seemed.

Life stalled, becoming stale. Your strength was there, but not in all ways. Where you lacked strength, I tried to fill the gap, but this caused anger. No even line of coupledom was desired. Peaks and troughs were the preferred state of affairs. You needed the highs and hated the lows, thrived on excitement and danger, and wouldn’t accept the banality of a normal life. The danger and excitement were new to me and like a sweet nectar at times, a bitter poison at others.

Life evolved, the passion gone but replaced by a burning love and undying loyalty. You were a drug. In the right dose, you cured. Too little and I was left quivering, missing an essential part of me. Too much and I reeled from intoxication, emotions raw and exposed. I tried to find pleasure in the realities of life and to keep you at a distance in order to avoid the troughs. But like a drug, you sucked me in closer, wrapped me in a beautiful bubble and made me feel so high until you felt so low. Then we both spiraled down like Icarus, alight with the passion of love misdirected.

Time seemed to go nowhere, not forward, not backward. We changed, shifted, became. My strength grew in time, always striving to fill those ever-deepening cracks. It felt like glue and mortar, necessary binders, and not unlike a bandage applied by a loving nurse. Your strength morphed and grew dark. You stopped seeing the highs. Your actions were restless, frustrated by the shackles of life and not comforted by the binders and bandages. You turned outward, leaving me with faceless comfort. I turned inward, leaving you with solitude.

Many years we stayed like this, little communication to keep us connected and no passion to guide us toward ecstasy. I knew not how to tell you how I felt. I had not the words to make you know how much I loved you. My strength was focused on salvation, not rekindling. My strength had failed me, you, us. It had grown from a place where none existed and overtaken my softness, my kindness, my spirit. Your strength had darkened further, sucking life but not giving protection, except to you from me.

Love, it was there, but it had changed, it had sickened. We loved, we felt, but we did not love and feel together, in sync with one another. We loved ourselves, our possessions, our individuality. We felt our isolation, our pain, our own feelings. We let our love lie in a sickbed, withering and neglected.

Love, it drove us to change, drove us to shed the old and seek a new beginning. We knew what needed to be done, and we raced to do it, knowing the consequence if we did not.

Love, it brought us to a new place, full of hope and light. For the first time in so long we relaxed our strengths and tried to find the love inside. We struggled. How do you find that which you did not know you’d lost? What I felt was still strong, but sleeping inside a casket of ice. But the new place brought signs of good to come. The darkness lessened. The mood lightened. But you weren’t here. You were everywhere else, finding new loves, new passions, for things life here couldn’t offer. The excitement returned. I saw it in your eyes. You longed to experience, to live, and what we had was no longer a source of comfort. I longed to move forward, to have stability and a joy greater than you can imagine in the soul of another, a pure one, waiting to be loved. You promised to stay, to experience the new soul with me, to try to rediscover our love.

The incident, it came barging into our life with roughness never before experienced. It brought all life, all love, all hope crashing to the ground. You thought you’d die but didn’t. But your life did. In a fleeting moment, you saw it die, and you decided to make it reality.

The incident, It peeled away skin, layer by layer, exposing raw, bloody flesh. It brought you excitement, wonder for the world, and for those in the world who had been locked away from you before. It brought you joy. It brought me unending sadness and grief. My love came flooding back, uncontrollably strong, an intense feeling that I’d never experienced. It shocked me, like alcohol on the raw, bloody flesh, to feel so strongly about another. My strength had shifted, no longer offering protection or binders or bandages but fortifying the love which still burned inside.

The incident, it brought you love, too, but love for others. Your love was forbidden, an apple from the garden with a sweet juice you couldn’t resist. Your appetite became insatiable. You became another, one I never knew, and one I wanted to know. Your love inspired my passion, which grew along with my love, blossoming like a moonflower, wide and open and hungry for the night’s clear light and freedom. But your passion, your love, were not for me. I was locked away, far away from your soul, unable to touch it no matter how far I stretched my fingers.

Passions evolve, love changes, and life bends to accommodate these changes. But your life is not bending, is not accommodating anything apart from your desires. You feel love. I feel your love. But you want more. I feel love, I feel passion. You can feel my love and passion, but they are poisonous to you. My touch makes you recoil, my love makes you angry, my passion makes you ill.

Love and passion misdirected produce a glow visible to others. They burn and radiate power from within. They evoke euphoric highs and deep, dark lows that they are impossible to describe without drawing the reader into an inescapable pit of despair. Misdirected, they frighten others like a flame frightens an animal and attract similar souls burning out of control. These feelings, if harnessed, can bring extreme pleasure but unfettered can bring destruction. They are heroin for the soul, seductively addictive and scintillating but alluring in their danger.

Your pain is intense, your feelings surreal and exaggerated. I feel you. You burn me. Yet your burns do not frighten me. They feel warm and real and alive. Perhaps I am a similar soul, burning too intensely with uncontrolled passion and love and desire.

Take my hand, take me inside the granite walls. Feel with me, feel for me, understand the changes within, the evolution, the growth. Do not let your love and passion destroy you. They blind you with their intensity but intensity fades. Bright flames burn out quickly. Your passion and love need not burn out or fade. Harness their energies, draw them in like a breath of pure, sweet mountain air. Let them feed your soul, nurture it, strengthen it. Let them make you whole, healed. Then learn to feel with a rich, resilient soul that will understand the world around and feel life with a tender, joyous pleasure.

I feel you and I love you, always.

(c) 2006

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