Impossible Love

How can I love you? Is it possible to love while being in love with another, or maybe a little different, is it possible to be in love while loving another? It is (sometimes) difficult to separate the two concepts and even more impossible to combine them. Is it not obvious that one leads to the other?

Can a blunt knife sharpen itself? Of course not.

Love is a knowledge. We are not born with it. From birth we are taught to love. In the beginning it most probably is a confusion of our infantile dependence but slowly we differentiate between our feeling for a doll, the house cat or dog and special people around us. We play, test and experiment.

In ignorance we trip over puppy love. We are stupid, honest and fearless. The confusing pain and emptiness of a love that inexplicably dies leaves us feeling foolish, pained and scared. But we learn! Never again will we openly declare our love. Neither show it. We nurture it within ourselves -- distant love. We collect pebbles and build a wall around us. Safe haven.

And yet we regularly torment ourselves. Fall in love, fall out of love, strengthening the wall. With a strong wall the game becomes easier and more interesting. We are strong and wise -- we think! And then one day, smiling and effortless, someone shatters the foundations of our wall and it crashes down around us.

Shocked and strangely glad we stand- naked in our vulnerable defenslessness. The way a cool evening breeze drives away the heat of the day, love's breeze wafts away the staleness from our soul and we stand renewed. We become child again. We laugh because it pleases us and we cry because we want to. Shamelessly.

What we now have has to be protected. The pebbles of our walls are combined into a home for our souls. Safe prison...

In my new loneliness I struggle with the conflict in my mind. Confusing thoughts make me restless. Yes -- no. No -- yes. Where to go? What is right. What is wrong? Is there even an answer? What will be the most painful? The ache of now or the ache I know will come if I pursue this new love? The uncertainty is tiring and keeps me awake.

In the early morning sun I hungrily suck on my first cigarette of the day, just after my first coffee. Almost lazily the smoke drifts upward. First this way and then that before it indecisively breaks into two trails, each making their own way in the cool air. Distractedly I watch it. A little wisp feels a movement of air and darts almost happily towards another only to turn into nothing after an almost happy reunion.

Nothing?

How can it be nothing? I cannot see it any more but yet it is still there. Particles of it may waft into your window. Maybe you will smell it while you prepare breakfast. Maybe you will look at me. Maybe even wave to me. The reflection of the window makes me blind.

Possibly a few molecules of my cigarette smoke may rain down on a grassy plain. Is it even possible that a little plant may use it as fertiliser to create a flower? Will someone see it? Will they even think that a miniscule part of my love for you blooms even here? Free. So far? So beautiful?

Or will it form part of the haziness in the air that makes sight difficult? Ugly and unsightly? Combine with other gasses in the air to create acid to rain down and destroy? It smothers and suffocates. Beauty wilts. Becomes ugly.

You walk out on the street and I wave non chalantly, my excitement hidden. I want to run to you. Hold you. Cherish you.

The new wall is stronger. More knowledge. The foundations are strong, I know. I have learnt as well. This wall has windows. I can have the staleness blown out. Why then am I pushing against the wall? Why the search for a weak spot?

The other day, just for a moment, you were in my arms. A farewell - good night. A promise of coffee some day. Nothing more. No matter when. For hours afterward I still felt your breasts against me and the gentle rotation of your pelvis saying what we may not share.

In the cold of a winters night I may look at you and in my silence drink in your beauty, little by little, like hot coffee

For another day only. When I am lonely. A beautiful memory.