Blue Eyes: dream

i've never written a love story with a happy ending. maybe because my own endings have always been dangling, or just sentimental, or sad. past people, past loves, past lives, hopes, wishes, potential, moments of grace followed by hard hours of humanity. no fact, no reality, no big sweeping deep hearted love now and it seems to dominate my landscape, the knowledge that it's not happening. it makes me want to go to sleep, to maybe dream.

maybe in a dream i'll see that face or feel that kiss, maybe in a dream i'll feel like there's something bigger than doing the laundry or wishing. i read horoscopes that entice me on to some momentous venus return or neptune, planet-of-dreams-and-fantasy retrograding back into my romance sector (the biggest day of your year!) and if nothing happens on that day, tomorrow as a matter of fact, then i'm out for the count. there goes my biggest day!

so i tell myself i'll just fall in love with myself, and be daring about it. i tell myself that maybe romance is too cheap a thing for me at this age, and that i should just move along, let the kiddies fall in love. i wonder if i've used it all up, if there's nothing left except flitty boys who want some of what i've got, but make declarations to the tune of, i’m just going to be honest with you right up front: i don't want a relationship. then they play around, message, flirt, act bold and coy until they're done or bored, until they can whip out that phrase from the memory books and remind me that they were very clear from the start, they never even tried to lead me on…that i should have known. or married, taken ones who who slyly try to e-cheat with feigned respect and an ongoing litany of suggestive remarks which are regularly presented to me in comments, text and chat. and i think it's appropriate to just let the offending men ~ who are ever on the offense trying to score (if even just a lusty innuendo) and always on the hard-core defense ~ know that i am not interested in their games.   

how to write a love story then. is it even worth it? haven't they all been done before? two lovers meet, etc. etc. and since the story has been told in so many ways throughout the ages, should i abide by that wisdom that you shouldn’t even try to invent something new, but just steal and reinterpret the scene your own way? hmmmm.... i suppose that i could take any one of my stories and choose to tack on an ending that would satisfy my soul, like this: he came back for her and they lived happily ever after : )   

but, still, there's a compelling pull to try to write the true romance from scratch, so here goes: one day she met a wonderful man, though she was too shy, or maybe jaded, to believe that he could be wonderful long term. didn’t they always fizzle out in arrogance or rage or fear in the end? so here came this one. he was all dazzled, wasn't he, she could see the light from her aura dancing in his eyes, and he had that hungry look like they do. but he turned politely away, and stood by her side and whispered her into believing that he didn't just want to eat her, that he liked her company and was choosing to spend time with her. and he wanted her to choose to spend time with him as well. he wanted her to like him. just like him. they could go to the movies, they could go stroll, or sit somewhere and look at magazines together. would she want to do that, he asked? and maybe end the episode with a kiss? would she like to look up and look him in the eyes and smile, maybe blush? could she fall in love with this man? there were plenty who wanted her company, or said they did, but she knew she'd never love them the way they'd fall for her. it would be uneven, always lopsided. and they would be the ones who resented her gracious tolerance, for her only liking them without being in love. it was an impossible dynamic. but this one, here he was.   he looked like this or like this or like that. he was beautiful, like he should have been, like he has to be for me, she thought…

i can’t do this love story, though. i have no forsend for it! i can't flesh these characters out and know it's me i'm writing about because i don't believe anymore…i don't believe in romantic love anymore. it's all a lie (‘deceiving others. that is what the world calls a romance’…oscar wilde) and hormones and greed and attachment. then that deep existential pain. i think that i don't trust it. it happens to us like a tidal wave does, and we think we'll surf it then we're crushed. we try romancing others by making little heart shapes on our statuses and then we lay alone at night in the deep dark wondering what happened to all the waking-time feel-good. and the feel-good feels GREAT when we're in the midst of it, but it's not what we take into our lonely beds with us, when another day is done, another horoscope busted, another onslaught of selfish desire thwarted.

and then there’s this: i survived! is what i say to myself when i come home from a day, or a night of revel. i survived!... i'm still alive, and my breath is still mine, and there isn't an other pulling my exhale into his lungs and making it his. i survived... and i know that what i'm really saying to myself is why? where was he who was to make my heart stop, my lungs freeze, my belly fill with stars? the one who was to make me know i was dying within this material form, mesmerized, and bursting apart in endless blissful surges. where was he? i survived another day on planet earth, 3D matter and pure potential, just invisible to my would-be lover or riding a different dimension and still very much alert and very much alive.   

i can't write a love story because the only love there is is between family, and we are all family, we are all one for sure. how can i look another person in the eyes and not know that it's me looking at myself? i am both characters, i am the unknown that lies between them, i am the god-source, the pleasure, the hurt, the witness and the participant. i am you looking into me with your deep eyes and i am your warm lips…there is no separation. and i am you who hurts me, who fades or wanders away, or who is compelled by some strange dark desire to destroy the very thing he loves. i destroy myself, we are kali, we implode together, we desire and consume and we die the lovers death together, separated forever until we meet again. how can i know that we chose this, that we are complicit in our own passionate destruction, you who i am?

but we have to at least try, because that’s what a lover and writer has to do. so here we go again:

they met, they liked each other, they fell in love. they made love. they added to each other's lives, they enriched each other. they were perfect together, and they visited islands together. the compliment was obvious, everyone saw it. their dreams were easy dreams, and so they stayed with each other, even when it would have seemed like it was time to fall apart. they just kept on with each other, never giving up. they smiled with each other. they were alive and dying and truly happy at each others' side, content.

it sounds like a dream, though. always and ever just a lovely waking dream.