I have loved you unreasonably, constantly and completely. Even though in the end my love was for a wall, life continued to blossom across its cinder bricks. And though I longed to feel the warmth and colour that surely lay beyond that wall, in my yearning I learned to give my own side of it warmth and colour, in my own way.
But here's an ending, a real one this time.
Goodnight, completely.
I was close to death, in the clasp of the last, rational moment before I couldn't think or feel ever again. And the conclusion I drew in that last, rational moment : I am going to die now and there is nobody who lifts my soul, who loves me like that, who wants me like that.
When I woke, I realised that my quiet, relentless craving for security had ruined everything. It had put me in the wrong places to endure dulling situations with a twisted face and a strained smile. It had prevented me from making necessary breaks through brute fear of having no replacements, just ensuing void, void, void. But perhaps worst of all, it had trained me to think in narrow terms - so I could never really work out what kind of life would be more fulfilling. For all my references and all my solutions were what I could see at the end of my nose. And not things I wanted, nothing that which stirred something bigger than me within me, or gave me a strange flutter to think of it.
My dream when I have dared to dream of it is an ruined stone villa, quite square and formerly magnificent. It is surrounded by the emptiness and fullness of eye-high crops. The arched windows are hollow and the wooden farmhouse door is fractured. The light on the walls is dark lemon, the silence - immense. I am barefoot on small stones, hair loose and clad in a linen dress with tiny embroidered flowers, which are fading. My face is bronze and radiates clarity and strength. My features, even. Eyes, alive.
This old ruined house is mine and I will spend the rest of my life restoring it with delicacy and skill. My love will teach me how to work with wood and how to polish stone. He can see more than I can see, and for years he teaches me language and the secrets of that language. To become beautiful in the culture of the land, to study its myth. To know the fundamental truths of life. To become skilled in something intimate and old.
And perhaps all this as a preface to folding into myself in a room, a stream, a field, completely alone and finally ready to enter the universe of the greatest story ever written - La Divina Commedia.
But here's an ending, a real one this time.
Goodnight, completely.
I was close to death, in the clasp of the last, rational moment before I couldn't think or feel ever again. And the conclusion I drew in that last, rational moment : I am going to die now and there is nobody who lifts my soul, who loves me like that, who wants me like that.
When I woke, I realised that my quiet, relentless craving for security had ruined everything. It had put me in the wrong places to endure dulling situations with a twisted face and a strained smile. It had prevented me from making necessary breaks through brute fear of having no replacements, just ensuing void, void, void. But perhaps worst of all, it had trained me to think in narrow terms - so I could never really work out what kind of life would be more fulfilling. For all my references and all my solutions were what I could see at the end of my nose. And not things I wanted, nothing that which stirred something bigger than me within me, or gave me a strange flutter to think of it.
My dream when I have dared to dream of it is an ruined stone villa, quite square and formerly magnificent. It is surrounded by the emptiness and fullness of eye-high crops. The arched windows are hollow and the wooden farmhouse door is fractured. The light on the walls is dark lemon, the silence - immense. I am barefoot on small stones, hair loose and clad in a linen dress with tiny embroidered flowers, which are fading. My face is bronze and radiates clarity and strength. My features, even. Eyes, alive.
This old ruined house is mine and I will spend the rest of my life restoring it with delicacy and skill. My love will teach me how to work with wood and how to polish stone. He can see more than I can see, and for years he teaches me language and the secrets of that language. To become beautiful in the culture of the land, to study its myth. To know the fundamental truths of life. To become skilled in something intimate and old.
And perhaps all this as a preface to folding into myself in a room, a stream, a field, completely alone and finally ready to enter the universe of the greatest story ever written - La Divina Commedia.
