Round Two
The heart is a funny thing. Not the chunk of matter inside my chest: that concerns me very little. Fate gives life and takes it away, it isn't my place to question or be concerned by it. But the other heart... I'm quite interested in that. Love is entirely determined and guided by chance, it seems. Or perhaps it is simply an end product of causality. Maybe we are taught what to love. Maybe not. We are certainly taught what is beautiful. We get our lessons every day. Our television, our magazines, our entertainment all brings in to painful focus what perfection is and is not. My eyes have long since ceased to see people as people but as a collection of shapes to be critiqued. In the dark behind my eyes, I know this is an illusion, a facade, that their face is a mask behind which their darkness hides. And yet I see eyes, nose, mouth, ears, hair, and jaw not as the executors of expression but as the benchmarks of beauty. And it is on this topic that I must defer to the words of my personal hero:
True beauty is not a curse on the world. True beauty radiates from a leper's hope or a victim's resistance. True beauty does not exist in the symmetry of a face or the flatness of a belly. True beauty lives in the musk of sweat that forms after a good hard screw. True beauty is raw, ugly, human. True beauty throws up on your shoes. True beauty's eyes are bloodshot from being up all night fighting. True Beauty leaves a scar. True beauty hurts to look at -- because it reminds us how ugly we all are. It holds a mirror up to our mediocrity; our need to blend in, to conform, to believe in the craven imagery sold to us at the checkout line in the supermarket. We hunger for True Beauty because we are feeding ourselves with dust to fill our need. We are gorging ourselves at the buffet table of illusion and wondering why we never feel full, never feel satisfied, never feel beautiful. Turn away from the mirage and feed with me.
I believe this, in the honest spaces of my mind. In the dark behind my eyes, I see true beauty. But even there, all that is beautiful, all that is wonderful in the world, becomes pale. Dull. Lifeless. Disposable. Because I compare it to you. Because you are the most beautiful thing I have ever encountered. All of Earth's treasures sparkle and shine when in your presence. In your absence they become foul and unremarkable. And in the same way I feel revived and vibrant and free with you. Without you, I may just as well be a rock or a leaf or a grain of sand for all the value I am to the world.
Knowing that I am nothing without you helps me understand why you will never want me.
True beauty is not a curse on the world. True beauty radiates from a leper's hope or a victim's resistance. True beauty does not exist in the symmetry of a face or the flatness of a belly. True beauty lives in the musk of sweat that forms after a good hard screw. True beauty is raw, ugly, human. True beauty throws up on your shoes. True beauty's eyes are bloodshot from being up all night fighting. True Beauty leaves a scar. True beauty hurts to look at -- because it reminds us how ugly we all are. It holds a mirror up to our mediocrity; our need to blend in, to conform, to believe in the craven imagery sold to us at the checkout line in the supermarket. We hunger for True Beauty because we are feeding ourselves with dust to fill our need. We are gorging ourselves at the buffet table of illusion and wondering why we never feel full, never feel satisfied, never feel beautiful. Turn away from the mirage and feed with me.
I believe this, in the honest spaces of my mind. In the dark behind my eyes, I see true beauty. But even there, all that is beautiful, all that is wonderful in the world, becomes pale. Dull. Lifeless. Disposable. Because I compare it to you. Because you are the most beautiful thing I have ever encountered. All of Earth's treasures sparkle and shine when in your presence. In your absence they become foul and unremarkable. And in the same way I feel revived and vibrant and free with you. Without you, I may just as well be a rock or a leaf or a grain of sand for all the value I am to the world.
Knowing that I am nothing without you helps me understand why you will never want me.