Saudade

Midnight. Two hours ago is when I planned to go to sleep. My heart is pounding though and keeping me from it. From sugar. Two pieces of left over birthday cake. But for romance's sake we can leave that out maybe. Ah romance. Something I've lost a good deal of. I'm rebounding. I've dipped so heavily into that pool and have retracted so far from it. But in both extremes, I lose myself. My balance of encompassing them both.

It's funny- I often read over past writings of mine and think- Fuck, that was so good! That's so clearly expressed and pure. And what I've gotten since then is a good beating. A good dose of reality and experience that has eroded my rough edges smooth. And who has time for poetry and words to play with then there's a car to register and rent to pay and an article to write?

My mind hops around frantically- looking for something that will catch its attention. My attention so unrooted and free-floating. Reeling in outer space after having detached from the gravitational field of my love. Funny that term, "my love". The love being truly mine. And how true. Thinking back, hearing his voice or reading something he wrote to me, he is objectively unremarkable. And certainly embodies very few of the qualities that I would list as being things I seek out. Values we share. Yet, with all of my heart, I adored him. Maybe just because he let me and so few do. And that feeling- that- that is a feeling unlike any other.

For every electron in my body, normally stretching and pulling me in multiple directions at once, to stop. Align. And all move together in one. I had found direction, a purpose, and it took me off into the woods on a path I didn't expect. And ran me eventually into a brick wall over and over again until, through sheer will, I stepped back, looked up at the stars and wandered off into the darkness in hope of once again finding light.

I want something. So badly I yearn, I long, I grieve for something. But I have no idea what. Finding a treasure trove, I'm convinced, in which one is stocked with enough mystery to last a lifetime. Little pockets of unknown that can be unwrapped and discovered, a source to which any yearning can be attributed and thought to be tangible, is the key. To delude oneself, to mask oneself in a dillusion so grand and beautiful that incompletion becomes romance and failure becomes an art. A world in which every stroke plays into a picture, messy up close but grand from far away. That's the picture I want to paint. The bridge I want to look at.

In the face of the massive expanse of this crazy crazy world, every longing looks silly and every concern and excitement, insignificant and petty. So, in the name of beauty, in the name of romance, for god's sake, make your world a litte smaller. Put blinders on yoursef so, like a horse, you can rule out fear and keep onward.

The biggest heartbreak, the biggest source of emptiness and frustration, is not knowing what to long for. The longing will always be there. My longing however has no direction. I'm turning in circles trying to find a worthy cause, a green light, disoriented without it. Installing tangibles just to give myself a north star. Reeling and wallowing in my completion, desiring desire itself.

Here's the bottom line. You find meaning, everyone does, I certainly do, through love. Through lov-ing, the act of it. So never, at any turn, deprive yourself.