Monday, July 27, 2015

A Eulogy for Love - Chapter 6



For a woman, all resurrection, all salvation,
from whatever perdition, lies in love;
in fact, it is her only way to it.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Each man kills the thing he loves, according to Oscar Wilde and I love Nikos with all my heart and I'm killing him. I'm killing his psyche one day at a time. He's in love with me I feel it, I know it, but his love for me will never be reciprocated and that he surely understands. Perhaps if he told me about it something would change… But who am I trying to fool, nothing would. It would be better for him though if he stopped keeping that secret.

Secret? Not really. Everything shouts out the truth of his feelings for me; the way he talks and smiles to me, the shine in his eyes, his tenderness towards me, the way he worries when I'm not okay. He loves me with a pure, almost innocent love, whether he talks about it or not. Women always know. They know how to read the signs, yet they act surprised when someone, better late than never, confesses their feelings to them, if they don't love them back.

If there existed somewhere an ideal world, a land of dreams and a utopia, then he would be for me the ideal lover, the perfect partner. I can't think of a single woman who wouldn't want to be loved by someone like him, someone who lives love, and who never says I, unless he's about to blame himself for something. My desperate poet, will, I wonder, ever love you as much as I want to, as much as you deserve?

He's so special, one of those unfortunate souls that no matter how much they try they never find peace of mind. He will keep looking always for something, someone, and he'll keep turning inwards trying to conquer the desolate shores of his soul. And he will always leave, seeking the new, the strange, the different, the unknown.

No woman could ever stay by his side for too long. He's a man without a country, a fallen angel who doesn't quite fit in in our earthly world. He walks in the streets and sings All You Need is Love, he waves hello and smiles to the passersby, he looks up to the sky and his eyes sparkle as if he's about to fly. No woman could put up with him, not a single one. Just a couple of hours ago I've asked him what he did today and he said that he "became by four lines of lyrics richer." My crazy boy, my wise man, women love poetry, but they love security more.

It's painful for me, it really hurts that he's alone, but however sorry I feel for him, I can do nothing to bring him out of his solitude. Besides, what could I actually do to help? He's built his wall all by himself which means that only he can bring it down.

Oh, I wish, I pray that he would simply go away once again. Not necessarily away from here, just away from me. I don't want to find myself in a position that I would have to ask him to go. I simply want him to understand that I'm not right for him. To understand… To understand… To understand what? Oh God! I don't want him to go. I want him to think that I want him to. But if he does, then what? How could I live with myself then? I love him and he loves me… How could I ever tell the only true person I've ever met Do not love me, forget me, go? How?

I love him more than myself, and yet I could never live with him, become his second wing. He's too good and that I cannot stand. He believes that with his mild manners and peaceful gaze and his love, he can conquer everything, everyone. He lives in a world of dreams, while I survive the day to day hard realities of this one. He spends almost all his time, day and night, giving to others, and he never stops to think whether his efforts go to waste or not, or even if those others deserve his offerings. And even worst he believes with all his heart that I'm worth his love. Well, I don't think I do.

I have always been a pessimist, viewing the world through dark-tinted lenses. I've always expected things to go bad. While living a happy moment, I could see things taking a turn for the worse not long after. I don't know who or what to blame for my outlook. Perhaps it had something to do with the things I've lived. Maybe with the fact that I haven't met him early enough. The moment he stepped into my life, things started changing. Everything did. My days, all of a sudden, got rid of the black and  dressed in colors, and my nights were filled with poetry and music. He and his, let me call them, idiosyncratic friends have arrived like a breeze in my life, rejuvenating my senses, waking up my hibernating fantasy.

I admire his friends, almost as much as I admire him. They live the moment, every moment, they suck, as they say, the juices of the tree of life (I'm pretty sure that some poet wrote this, but his name, right now, I don't remember.) I am so happy that they took me, with open arms and so much love, in their company, and I'm so sad that I'll never be able to be like them; someone who can turn life into a poem, a song, a sculpture, a painting. If it wasn't for people like them the earth would stop spinning, the world dream would be erased from all the dictionaries in the world. Thank God there still exist the crazy ones, I've once heard someone say, I think it was Maria. Thank God. Thanks to them love, fantasy, visions, beauty, all that is worthy and true are still alive.

Might I but moor tonight in thee! I've once heard Emily wonder aloud… Might I moor in you? I want to do that, I really do, but I won't. When I've met you it was already too late, I had given myself to somebody else, and to him I still belong. You gave me all that Marios never did and for that I thank you. I know you hate these two words but since you're not going to read them or hear me saying them I dare whisper them in these pages: thank you!

I would like to hug you, kiss you, caress your hair, express my gratitude for you being there, for you being you, but I won't. Instead I'll keep filling this journal with these thoughts, safe in the knowledge that they'll remain hidden. This is my silent way of saying the thousands of thank you's I owe you. If you have, by some miracle, become the listener of my soul, then this thing here is going to be my secret confessor, someone that will never speak aloud, unless I want them to, the things that are best left unsaid. I am a flower that slowly gets eaten away by the secret poison.

Nikos, my poet and painter of my dreams, they say that the paper has no soul, and they are wrong. These pages are more alive than anything in the world. They have my scent, they carry my thoughts, they hide your omnipresence, they see my tears and feel my pain and joy. This paper, I'm writing on, is like a beating heart, it's all the world and nothing at all. Soulless is what soulless people call it.

Isn't it funny, or rather strange, that for some time now I'm writing as if you are right here and I'm talking to you? I feel like I'm composing a letter that I'm never going to send and that's not too far from the truth. But, if this was a letter, it wouldn't be so long, it wouldn't overflow with hurt and joy. I would simply write: Keep leaving (and living,) seek your dreams, reach for your peaks, stay you!

As I am writing these words, right next to me, in bed, lies Marios, the first man that made me feel like a woman, he who made me one. He is the body, you are the soul. He fulfills my desires, you make me want to live, to hope, to fly.

If we were spirits, you and I, we would set wings in our own secret skies, we would discover our personal paradise and we would built a world so full of beauty that in front of it the colors of the rainbow would pale. But we are not, we are made of matter, we depend on it. And that's probably why we two could never be… You are more spirit than matter, I am the opposite. And opposites may attract but in the end they capsize.

The beauty that deep inside me I hide no one will never know. Not even you, even though you may suspect it. I will stay with Marios and the hurt that goes with him. Somewhere inside I feel that I need this pain. The same glass gifts me both bitterness and delight.

To be continued.

The quotes written in Italian, unless implied otherwise, are by the Greek poet Maria Polydouri.

The image was taken from here.
 

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