Why Do I Love An Injured Bird?

As I watch her fingers move fluidly across her instrument she reveals a secret we share
The countless hours of practice this illusion of effortlessness requires can only be driven by pain and passion
This is an open secret
Not intended for me exclusively
It belongs to anyone who shares this compulsion
But I find comfort in it
I understand it
It’s a familiar method of survival in an alien world

She quotes Sylvia Plath
She shares her suffering with me
And I swoon
I want to kiss her physical scars
I want to give her the understanding and acceptance she deserves
Especially when she doesn’t feel she deserves it

I’m speaking to you directly now
The reader
Do you feel loved?

I am loved
I’m loved as a father, a brother, a son, a friend
I’m loved for kindness and humor
I’m loved for the humility and honesty I express
That allows others to feel accepted with all of their own quirks and flaws
I’m loved for the permission I give others to bare their scars and imperfections
I’m loved for loving others unconditionally

I’m grateful for the love I receive
Yet there’s a difference between being loved and being desired

Do you feel desired?

I’ve taken the advice
I’ve tried not to self deprecate
I’ve stood in front of the mirror
I’ve verbalized the things I like about myself
I’m empathetic, excitable, passionate, intellectually curious, creative
I know my qualities
I know I’m not worthless
This knowledge is of little consequence
I also know the limit of my worth

Desire

I will never again allow myself to feel desirable
This false hope leads to greater pain
This has become a wound so deep inside me I would have to turn myself inside out to touch it

Why do I love an injured bird?
The answer is terrifyingly simple:
I love her because I can give her the compassion I can’t give myself

She once desired me
When my body was strong and healthy
When I still had hope my future might be better than my past
When I had naive charm and my own brand of confidence

If she could see my weakness and vulnerability would she still desire me?
If she could see my naked form stripped bare of adornment
Unfiltered and without flattering lighting and camera angles
My rudely unremarkable raiment of flesh
This corporeal prison for my mind
Would she still claim to desire me?

Surely it’s possible she’d still love me
Love doesn’t require desire
She might love me as a friend loves another
But desire is fleeting and fickle

I’m still defenseless against my desire for her
And desiring someone who doesn’t desire me is a mistake I’ve made too many times to have not learned my lesson

I can’t allow myself to hope again
To endlessly climb the heights and plummet from the peaks

So where do I place this desire?
Where can I put this overflowing admiration?
I put it in the same place she puts her sadness
Into the music of my heart

Here I don’t exist
There’s no me here
Only sound and movement
Limbs moving in effortless coordination
Syncopated
Polyrhythmic
My one remaining source of pleasure
Other than alcohol
There’s no need for validation
No sadness
No self pity
No thoughts
No mind
Just the purity of my inner desire
Allowed to flow freely from within
And escape into the ether
An open secret that she may someday understand

I too am an injured bird