This time I chose to love alone, or has this love chosen me?
I likened its constancy to strength, resilience, and rebirth. I wrestled in its intertwined hope and despair. I tried to cast it off with prayers; long talks and walks with close friends, with myself; I tried to write it out of me; I tried to place it on the altar of sacrifice– all of this to no avail. It seemed to claw its way back into the you-shaped hole inside me like some puzzle piece that was meant to be there–remain there– until my last breath. Like a thorn of the flesh, I decided to make peace with its place in my life. It was a part of me; I couldn’t abandon myself.
I imagine you love me back–that you always loved me, that you never stopped. That you love me so much that you would learn another language, if you could– a language learned just for me so that you could express your deep, watery emotions. You’d discover some satisfaction in its translation and, with it, frustration by its limitations. Because you, like me, understand these are the deep wells of the heart that are incomprehensible. That with each attempted reach to draw them out, it becomes harder to retrieve, and yet with unwieldy hope, like a sacrament, we’d try to rend them from the heart so as to sanctify the other in the washing of water by words.
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