You were not here

 

I had an event tonight, one of these presentations that I usually give but the auditorium was enormous. I was looking for you among the audience, just one of my games to pacify myself or to live in my “what if “ world. I sent you a message a couple of days ago about the event. You did not answer for ages, then you sent me “ Good Luck”, just these 8 letters. Sometimes I hate English, I see it as a cold language, incapable of conveying emotions or even indifferent to do so. Did you think a lot before sending your eloquent message? Did it need a lot of energy? Would adding a smiley face or any other emoji drain you? A few months ago I would have sent you endless selfies, I would have complained about the suit, and repeated that the presentation would have been more genuine if I was allowed to be in my boxers, T shirt and bare footed. I would have made sure that you are attending online, and as soon as I finish I would call you to get your feedback. After the event we would meet, eat gateaux while you analyze each and every sentence that I said, agree with some and disagree with more. Ah, I forgot, before the event you would have sent me several messages reminding me to speak slowly and not to rush. I’m gazing at the audience, imagining you sitting in the middle, smiling. Remember when I told you how your beautiful eyes sparkle when you smile. Remember how many times I told you that I love your smile. I keep going, I say what I have to say, I pause every now and then remembering your advices, I look at the same spot, where you would have been sitting, not in the very first rows and not in the very last ones, and not in the sides, you won’t leave until I’m done so you don’t need to sit by the aisles. The slides are flipping quickly, maybe I talked quickly, maybe I should slower down a bit. Unfortunately you won’t tell me your thoughts after the event. You are not here, I don’t know where are you now and it won’t be appropriate to ask. I’m done, maybe there will be a question or two, I wish you were here, I wish I was allowed to ask one question, just one question, I would have asked you, “what happened to our love”.

1001 whispers

 Every night before I sleep, I send you 1001 whispers. I imagine them flying to you, a trail of beautifully written “I love you” connecting us, cheerful melodies reminding you that I love you. Maybe they turn into a string of tiny bright stars. I follow them, imagine the distances separating us, and the journey my whispers have to take every night. I love you. That is all what I feel, an enormous feeling that makes both of us helpless. I can’t describe my love and you can’t understand it. It grew up till it became a burden, became bigger than us and our comprehension. Your love became a whole world, the world that I escape to it every night to whisper “ I love you” 1001 times before I fail to sleep. How would I sleep if I keep recalling our moments again and again. I smile, I sigh and I surrender to tears. I keep wishing you happiness as if I turned into a goddess of motherhood or as if I became an angel in another dimension. But of course I’m wishing you happiness, but I don’t delve into the details of your coming love story, I’m not a saint and I’m not that sane. 

My coming life

 

What would your love turn me in my coming life? May I choose? Can I be your guardian angel? Will this allow me to be with you 24/7, gaze at you, listen to your whispers and sighs, will I be able to read your mind? Can i? It would be just fair after all what I have been through. I wait for the night to fall, to withdraw from the chaos surrounding me, go to bed, wait for you in my dreams. I think about you and me, I change the scenarios, some nights I sleep, but most nights are sleepless. If only I can be with you, as a soul, as a feeling or even as a memory. Isn’t it that strange, that my love is dying for recognition? My love wants you to feel it, acknowledge it and keep it alive with you. Consider it an ancient relic, a magical  amulet or just a souvenir of some happy days. Can I vanish, all of my being, everything about me, except my love for you. I will willingly dive into the oceans of oblivion, I’ll disappear with all what I said, did or felt, except your love, I mean my love for you. 

Can I be a bunch of dreams in my coming life? To visit you every now and then, to comfort you in the lonely nights or to remind you of blurry yet beautiful memories. May be I can be melancholic melodies in my coming life? Something that make you smile, sigh, remember love while gazing at the trees. I remember how we both loved trees and how we would talk for hours about that shrub or that flower. May be I can be your favorite color, your favorite flower, a fresh breeze whenever it’s hot. Can I be anything that keeps you in a wonderful mood? If I can’t be any of these things, would not it be more merciful not have a coming life?

What is happening?

 I don’t understand what’s happening. This is not new, but for the last couple of days I feel dead, not numb, not indifferent but dead. Also, it is not that feeling when you step back and let the autopilot take the lead, not as if you are monitoring life floating around you, no, I feel dead. It is neither a bad nor a good feeling, but honestly it is strange. You think of all the consequences and at the same time you think of nothing at all. What if(s) seem silly, although they used to be the pillars of my sanity, now, I don’t understand how I feel separated from everything and everyone. I should claim my Oscar, I am amazed by my ability to act as if everything is ok, as if I’m still here, still engaging in the boredom of life, the mediocrity of work, finances, social media and the deterioration of our world. 

I didn’t surrender, I was persistent till the last breath, but I don’t know what happened, maybe I am just betraying myself? A new punishment, or another loss. Did the lover die? Am I to be left with all the other human lumps…. What a nightmare! May be he didn’t die, maybe he is dying, he consumed all his strength, hope and positivity, he wasted himself in love, or in his heroic attempts to understand the essence of it, and its secrets. Did he take all the memories with him? Am I left alone, totally alone? Will he visit me again! 

What is happening? Nobody went there, to the other bank of life, the other edge, the other shore, the other side, the other life, no body told us what’s there, what is waiting for us. Is it like this, is this death? Is it the state where the best in you and the best of you leave? So what remains of you is almost nothing, a soulless body, without the sufficient amount of memories and emotions to keep you going. Is that it? Am I supposed to keep going in this state? How and why? How can he leave, like this, without a proper goodbye? Again, without a proper goodbye. If these are my first official steps towards total madness, then I will not panic, I will be patient, and keep acting that everything is alright. I will finish sending these emails and then I will eat something. 

We found each other

 “We found each other” this is what I felt and believed in. Two souls bumped accidentally into each other to realize that being together was the only logical thing to happen. It happened quickly and subtly, so none of us could have recalled the beginning of our story, or this was what I thought. The happiness was extreme, unbelievable and unexpected, so no wonder that I lost my mind. I remember how I was surprised by my realization that the songs lyrics made sense, all of them, even the ones that felt too fluffy or too…. Whatever, this became history. Now I’m shattered alone, feeling the loss of what made me complete and happy. I used to feel charming, more handsome and funnier, can you imagine? Remember I told you, and you replied in an absent minded tone “ enjoy it while it lasts”. Of course I didn’t notice your seriousness or sense of melancholy, I kept smiling cheerfully or rather naively. 

“It would not have lasted forever …. “ I shushed my friend when he told me this, and I angrily said, “But it hasn’t been long enough”. I collapsed, why? Is it my vulnerability or is falling in love makes us even weaker? So, is it the urge to feel complete that forces us to seek love? Or the fear of such incompleteness that eats us up day after day. I feel a huge void in me, a dark, sad void that is getting bigger, it is dragging me away from everything familiar. Sometimes I feel that even my features had changed, my grimace became harsher, more wrinkles surrounded my eyes, I aged in a few months, weathered. I survived the lack of love throughout my whole life but I could not bear tasting it, then all of a sudden I’m deprived. 

Don’t you miss me? Ever? Didn’t you feel the same surreal joy, the sense of completeness or that strange feeling of returning home, finally returning home. They say heaven will be a state of mind, not a place, and I was in heaven with you, no wonder that I am losing my mind now. I am not Adam, and I wasn’t given his will and god doesn’t love me as he loves Adam. Without your love I feel banished, I feel worthless and I feel banished. There is no place that feels like home anymore. I am just a temporary thing floating in temporary spaces for temporary periods of time. Will I ever return back to your heaven? Weren’t believers promised that you will live eternally in paradise? I believed in love, and I deserve to live eternally in your love, or die eternally in it. 

Patience

 Patience, ah, the advice that people generously disperse it among each other. But what is patience? Is it waiting and waiting till you get what you wanted or reach where you desired? Or is it a kind of lame surrender, so it is simply waiting and waiting till your life comes to an end.  Is patience, a mixture of surrender, acceptance and oceans of oppressed sadness that fill you while you perform your mundane duties. Ok, let me listen to your advices, let me be patient, but about what? About grasping such precious life and losing it in no time? Or do they mean that you will return one day to me, and all what I have to do is to be patient! 

Everyday passes without you is a day lost from my life, is a missed opportunity of happiness, and I became very conscious about the passing of time. I became paranoid about how the months are gliding away and we are approaching summer. Summer again, with all its memories, hopes and plans. I was still thinking about how many years had been wasted before meeting each other. How would we be able to recall two whole lives, our stories, the people who passed by and left scars and lessons, and most importantly what we missed along the way. Again, I’m stranded between two scary cliffs, my life before meeting you and my life after you left me, and I’m toe tipping on a fine thread of memories. O, these memories are being turned into myths, I think that unconsciously I added a few phrases to what you said on that day, more smiles and many more glamorous laughs of yours. In these memories you were so caring and loving, maybe this wasn’t really the case, maybe you were nice, just nice, and nothing more. Patience they say, ok, if it is acceptance and surrender, then they are asking me to accept the loss and the awareness that there is such an enormous feeling that I will never feel again. Haven’t I always said that “ ignorance is a blessing”? If only I did not know that there was such a life-changing kind of love, I would have been much happier, unaware of what I am missing. But now, after spending sometime in the paradise of love, I don’t know how to return to my old life. Patience, they say, so I must be grateful for such a brief transcendence, as not everyone received such an honour, and what an honour, I was exceptionally lucky, but maybe such legendary encounters do not suit me. Maybe it would have been safer and calmer to continue wading in my calm, boring to death yet safe life. Patience, they say, till love or the loss of love complete their work, transform me completely to a human wreck, who feels the pain, empathizes with those who suffer and gets worried about those who are madly in love. Is this my destiny? To be elevated to a more noble man through a rough journey of pain, loss and grief? Am I kidding myself or is this just the effect of my antidepressant. Yes, I returned to those wicked pills, maybe they help, maybe they push the days with all the sadness that fill them, maybe they will guide me to that vague thing called patience. 

Help

 

Today I will change the whole scenario. Why not? Can’t I hallucinate for a day or a few hours? Can’t I play “let’s pretend”, an innocent game for someone my age. I need this breath of fresh air, this gentle tap just to keep going. The day will start by a phone call, “ I love you” this will be the first thing that you will say, even before the typical alo. I will smile and tell you that I love you more. ….. it is not working, daydreaming stopped working, maybe I have already abused it over the past few months. Our memories are so vivid, and I can still hear the echoes of your voice, “ I managed to overcome the feelings I had towards you”. O god, I really hate these words. It’s not about rejection, it is something else that I am trying to discover or understand. I must admit that I blame you, yes I blame you, at the beginning you dragged me to your love, I was not even thinking or daring to love you. Your attitude was encouraging, inviting and even seductive, so it felt like the normal and only logical thing to happen. I fell in love, I literally fell, and it’s an abyss. 

I don’t know from where am I getting such stubbornness, I have never been like this before. I have been known as a master of quitting, so why can’t I quit the whole story? Why am I still lingering lonely in that paradise that you left a long time ago. Am I enjoying the pain, or is it getting too familiar to be left, maybe I forgot how my life was, before loving you. 

The surreal connection that we had, made my entire life bare, barren and boring. Unfortunately you simply walked away, simply walked away, you left me there alone, shocked and unable to comprehend, I clung to your love tightly as if it was the only reality I had ever known. Sometimes I want to knock on your door, hug you tightly, stay silent and let the rivers of my tears flood us both. When you push me away, I will ask for empathy, I already know that you are merciless, but I will ask for compassion, sympathy or even help.  You have to guide me to leave the ruins of what used to be our place. I don’t care about how you see me, weak, pathetic, whatever you say won’t make a difference. I simply admit that i need your help to move on, I can’t manage this step alone. Would you please help me, and maybe then I won’t disturb you again. 

Maybe it is just a gloomy day

 I traveled to the lands of poets and legendary lovers. I saw the devotees weeping at every shrine. I heard the nightingales singing in paradisiacal gardens. I carried my love with me along the tiresome way. The sighs of lovers whispered that I am not alone. The pains of the lonesome accompanied me, and I could not ask them to stay away. 

Running away does not help, I knew this but I wanted to find myself, to get me back and maybe leave your love as a treasure in that far land. I wish I could have built another shrine for us, for our story, I wish I could bury in it all my pain, longing and despair. Your love is killing me everyday, it is washing all the colors and melodies that I had known away. Now nothing seems fulfilling or even interesting again. How deep the scar of your love will be? I wish it would be a scar, at least it will be part of me, and then it would tell everyone the whole story and leave me in the silence that I am starting to befriend these days. It won’t be a scar for sure, but a million wound that keep bursting with pain, and I will have to keep going, as of what and to whom would I complain. Let me gaze at the scenes around me, let me lose myself for a few minutes in my day dreams where we can have a quick conversation before you quickly escape. 

It’s not your fault

 

Don’t feel bad, it’s not your fault that I lost myself in your love. There is nothing that you can do, and unfortunately there is nothing that I can do. It was meant to be like this, we met, we love each other, you leave me along the way and I loose myself. Maybe I’ll be ok after a while, maybe soon, who knows? I’m whirling with a different feeling everyday, bitterness, sadness, happiness…. Every feeling that a man has ever experienced visits me. Some visits are calm, some are harsh, but they all leave me alone, I mean they leave me with your love. 

How can I put these feelings into words without sounding more pathetic? What can I tell you, there is a difference between being understanding and being humiliated. So please when you trace love in my words or messages please don’t feel bad or even responsible for my state. I don’t know how do you perceive what I am going through, my friends keep sending me wisdom quotes and encouraging words. I just want to tell them, thank you but I don’t see or hear you. I am in the realm of unfulfilled love, a world of my own where sometimes I am happy and most of the time I am not. Time will heal me! That is what they say, sometimes I wish that I can call you and laugh a bit about all their advices, I can hear you saying with a beautiful laugh “ ah, because they don’t know”. 

Did I say unfulfilled love? I am sorry, this is not true. It is fulfilled, it is us who don’t understand who love works, we underestimate its intensity and depth. If you want to say that I talk like lunatics, please do. I became the master of all lunatics and again please don’t feel responsible for this. I see you in everything and I keep talking to you wherever I am. I can’t believe that we will never meet again in the paradise of love. Love itself is strange and is definitely undefinable, but I can assure you that your love is changing me, change is painful, longing is painful, but apparently this is my share and I have to accept it. 

I am sorry

 I am sorry 

I have to admit that I ruined everything, the whole thing, I ruined what I considered the most beautiful love story ever and what you considered budding feelings. I scared you with my insecurities, my thirst for love and my irrational answers to all your questions. I was escaping the whole world in your presence, and I kept exaggerating our love story so that it can conceal all the ugliness and sadness of the world that haunt me. All what I need is you, I told you this till you got bored or at least till the words lost their meaning, am I blaming the words again? Whatever I told you was only a small part of what I felt, I repeated my love phrases over and over, maybe to ensure that everything will be ok, or to get a reply from you. Your silence was cruel and your wisdom was frustrating. Maybe you were able to understand my panic, how your love was my lifesaver, and how it was obvious that it was my last battle. Did you really see how weak I was? Clinging to you stubbornly as my last and only hope. I am sorry for exposing you to such a traumatic situation, you met the ultimate pain, the ultimate grief and the ultimate despair all cast in one person who is happily asking you to enjoy love. I have always accused you of being super rational and too pragmatic, I am sorry, I was hiding the truth as usual, you got intimidated by a lunatic and you had to. I don’t even understand how did I expose all my vulnerabilities that early and that easy? As if I was trying to ruin everything, or simply because deep down I did not believe that I deserve such love and such happiness, so I put an end to a story that was just starting. Before blaming you I should keep silent for a while, maybe silence clarifies the truth and shows me my reality. I am sorry. 

A season

“Everyone comes into your life for a reason, season or a lifetime.” I remembered this quote today. You mentioned it once, I smiled foolishly then and told you that it is so deep and we have to discuss it, but apparently the conversation shifted to much lighter topics. Today, I realized that we did not get the chance to talk about this heartbreaking quote. I also realized that you came to my life for a reason, you can’t to my life for a season and you came to my life for a lifetime. Will I ever understand the reason, or accept my fate after understanding that I had to be immersed in real life, real love and real pain. I had to leave the seats of the audience and run towards the tornado, and that was what I did. That what I naively did. A season, what a season! Although it would be unfair to count our days and fit them within a season or a period, but these days, these precious days are all what I lived and are all what I have now. I’m not sure if I can speak on your behalf but I think that you should call that period, the season of tenderness, you were so tender, caring and kind. There were faint traces of resistance in you, as if you did not want to surrender to love or you were not ready yet or simply you were more comfortable behind your masks of seriousness and decisiveness. May be I came to your life for a season, but you came to mine for a lifetime, yes you will always be with me till my last breath. 

I tried silence, but it didn’t help, it felt like treason. How can I stop talking about us or about you, how? If we are not together in the conventional sense, I should keep the love story alive, I should awake every memory and revive every word, laugh and song that we shared, even if briefly. I have to keep going, no matter how high the waves of sadness that hit me, no matter how lonely I feel and no matter how days are pulling me away from our “season”. Ah, by the way, I really wished that our season was longer, even if slightly longer. The story seems abrupt, and sometimes this hurts me but most of the time it annoys me. Yes I pass by short phases of frustration, where I want to scream, I feel betrayed by everyone and everything and specially betrayed by myself, my sense and my own words. How didn’t I convince you? How didn’t I …. What? What could I have done more? Apparently my subconscious is refusing to remember what happened and what did you say. It seems that my subconscious is burying this memory deeper and deeper every day. 

I wonder if you ever remember this quote, do you smile when you think of me, or am I already tightly packed in the maze of your past. Do you remember me as someone who came to your life even if for just a “season”, or did I come to your life for a “reason”? Do you ever think of me or our story? Do you ever feel the pain? Do you regret being that wise and pragmatic while burying our budding love beneath solid layers of your logic. All these question haunt me and will keep accompanying me till the very end.  You are excellent at playing the role of a friend, you send friendly messages and make friendly calls and send me friendly wishes. I am forced to be kept dragged in this vicious cycle, as a friend should not ignore his friend, right? Isn’t this our unwritten law or rather your merciful compromise.