Grieve
Rating: PG
Summary: There are two different types of people in this world, and I've always known that you and I are not two of the same.
***
There are two different types of people in this world, and I've always known that you and I are not two of the same. It's not enough to say that we both go to museums; we do, but not together. I linger in front of quiet art pieces with a longing glance towards the sign that forbids direct touch, while you flitter about the written explanation on the side. I suppose it's always been like that. It's hard to tell whom, but one person is always one step behind.
Sometimes I wonder if you know the story behind this picture:
Two figures lie together in a hammock on a placid afternoon; the woman's head nestled gently against the man's chest. The rhythmic beating of his heart soothes her and echoes the reassurance of the quiet afternoon. The calmness resting over her vibrates as they rock, almost imperceptibly, as the sun sinks. But the stillness is easily shattered, and a sudden movement makes her fall out their bubble of tranquility and bruise pale skin. She-lying on the ground and looking up at him-thinks to herself, "I don't know you." She gazes at him, at the silhouette illuminated above her by the distant embers of the sun. "I don't know you at all."
I'll say this to you, someday, and you'll look at me strangely, the confusion you will try to hide marring your face. It's easier to pretend sometimes, whether to yourself or to somebody else. The experience will be new to you, and you'll try to justify it, but the slithery fingers of truth are never really gone. This is the lesson you will learn, and I await the day you come to me, broken and unyielding, with no secrets or differences between us. I grieve for the day that we become the same, and we will see, then, if either of us understands.
Because right now, we are not the same, and you pretend to know this but I can tell that you don’t.
Distantly, she remembers how she once asked the man-sometimes she calls him her lover-what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. She asked him hesitantly, as if she already knew the answer but was afraid to hear the words escape from the prison of his mouth. They would burn her and cut away her skin until she could only feel the edges of shadows at her fingertips. She knew this, but she asked him anyway.
Looking away from her, he smiled and told her that he wanted to be free, to run and fly and all those other things that people took for granted (she always knew he was a desperate dreamer). She looked at him then, past the waxy façade, and saw him as a lost butterfly anxiously fluttering its wings inside a glass jar, reckless in its need to break free. She saw bright and vivid arches in danger of turning to sticky dust, and the abominable beauty that refused to let her look away.
She listened to him speak, the rumblings in his chest, and wondered what it was inside something so beautiful that made it so easy to lie.
In days she can no longer reach, she too had a dream. She dreamt of one day becoming a glamorous actress-a real actress-who lived behind a glass screen. The woman would seem lifelike and reachable, but be completely untouchable. People would look at her shining eyes, the liquid happiness or sadness, and admire her for giving them the sense of meaning they had been searching for. Meaning was something she herself yearned for, whether in her life or somebody else's. She liked the warmth that emanated from inside her when she had a goal, and if necessary she could pretend that the flesh covering her bones was her own. She yearned for a purpose, and sometimes she didn't even mind that the person standing in the mirror was not herself.
It was under that pretence that they met-by chance, by luck-but she tells herself that it is different now. At the time he could have been anyone: the emptiness inside her was so great that she could not distinguish between the void of not having him and that of not having anything at all. She wonders what her life would be like now if it had not been him.
A woman sits on the ground, looking up at a faceless man.
A woman searches for his eyes to reveal something, only to leave her completely dull inside.
A woman sits on the cold ground, alone.
She wonders why it is always the things she needs that nobody can give her.
When they met she told herself that they were different people. He was not her-she hoped that he would never be her-and no matter how much she tried, she could never again be anything like him. There were two different types of people in this world, and she was glad that they were not two of the same.
I have this dream sometimes. You aren't in it, but I can always feel you there. I'm standing in a long hallway, white and empty. I feel comfortable yet claustrophobic because there are so many doors, so many choices, but so many of them are locked. I never try to open any, but instinctively I know which ones I can't go through, and I know that you're behind one of them. The door I stop at is no different to the others-white and familiar-and sometimes I almost think I remember that it's on the other side that you stand.
I do that a lot these days, stand in front of things and try to remember their significance. I'm doing that with you now, and I wonder when you will notice that I'm gone.
The hammock is empty.
I grieve for you.
FINIS
Summary: There are two different types of people in this world, and I've always known that you and I are not two of the same.
***
There are two different types of people in this world, and I've always known that you and I are not two of the same. It's not enough to say that we both go to museums; we do, but not together. I linger in front of quiet art pieces with a longing glance towards the sign that forbids direct touch, while you flitter about the written explanation on the side. I suppose it's always been like that. It's hard to tell whom, but one person is always one step behind.
Sometimes I wonder if you know the story behind this picture:
Two figures lie together in a hammock on a placid afternoon; the woman's head nestled gently against the man's chest. The rhythmic beating of his heart soothes her and echoes the reassurance of the quiet afternoon. The calmness resting over her vibrates as they rock, almost imperceptibly, as the sun sinks. But the stillness is easily shattered, and a sudden movement makes her fall out their bubble of tranquility and bruise pale skin. She-lying on the ground and looking up at him-thinks to herself, "I don't know you." She gazes at him, at the silhouette illuminated above her by the distant embers of the sun. "I don't know you at all."
I'll say this to you, someday, and you'll look at me strangely, the confusion you will try to hide marring your face. It's easier to pretend sometimes, whether to yourself or to somebody else. The experience will be new to you, and you'll try to justify it, but the slithery fingers of truth are never really gone. This is the lesson you will learn, and I await the day you come to me, broken and unyielding, with no secrets or differences between us. I grieve for the day that we become the same, and we will see, then, if either of us understands.
Because right now, we are not the same, and you pretend to know this but I can tell that you don’t.
Distantly, she remembers how she once asked the man-sometimes she calls him her lover-what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. She asked him hesitantly, as if she already knew the answer but was afraid to hear the words escape from the prison of his mouth. They would burn her and cut away her skin until she could only feel the edges of shadows at her fingertips. She knew this, but she asked him anyway.
Looking away from her, he smiled and told her that he wanted to be free, to run and fly and all those other things that people took for granted (she always knew he was a desperate dreamer). She looked at him then, past the waxy façade, and saw him as a lost butterfly anxiously fluttering its wings inside a glass jar, reckless in its need to break free. She saw bright and vivid arches in danger of turning to sticky dust, and the abominable beauty that refused to let her look away.
She listened to him speak, the rumblings in his chest, and wondered what it was inside something so beautiful that made it so easy to lie.
In days she can no longer reach, she too had a dream. She dreamt of one day becoming a glamorous actress-a real actress-who lived behind a glass screen. The woman would seem lifelike and reachable, but be completely untouchable. People would look at her shining eyes, the liquid happiness or sadness, and admire her for giving them the sense of meaning they had been searching for. Meaning was something she herself yearned for, whether in her life or somebody else's. She liked the warmth that emanated from inside her when she had a goal, and if necessary she could pretend that the flesh covering her bones was her own. She yearned for a purpose, and sometimes she didn't even mind that the person standing in the mirror was not herself.
It was under that pretence that they met-by chance, by luck-but she tells herself that it is different now. At the time he could have been anyone: the emptiness inside her was so great that she could not distinguish between the void of not having him and that of not having anything at all. She wonders what her life would be like now if it had not been him.
A woman sits on the ground, looking up at a faceless man.
A woman searches for his eyes to reveal something, only to leave her completely dull inside.
A woman sits on the cold ground, alone.
She wonders why it is always the things she needs that nobody can give her.
When they met she told herself that they were different people. He was not her-she hoped that he would never be her-and no matter how much she tried, she could never again be anything like him. There were two different types of people in this world, and she was glad that they were not two of the same.
I have this dream sometimes. You aren't in it, but I can always feel you there. I'm standing in a long hallway, white and empty. I feel comfortable yet claustrophobic because there are so many doors, so many choices, but so many of them are locked. I never try to open any, but instinctively I know which ones I can't go through, and I know that you're behind one of them. The door I stop at is no different to the others-white and familiar-and sometimes I almost think I remember that it's on the other side that you stand.
I do that a lot these days, stand in front of things and try to remember their significance. I'm doing that with you now, and I wonder when you will notice that I'm gone.
The hammock is empty.
I grieve for you.
FINIS