Archives for October 2007

Someone once told me that the heart wants what the heart wants. I don’t know if that is a line from a book or a movie, it could be. Then again it might be one of those pithy statements that people come up with. I’d ask the person who told me but I can quite remember who said it. Hell, it might have even been
me.

The heart wants what the heart wants. You know what that means? It is a statement made by people who can’t explain why they are in love with person xyz. It is what you say when there is no logical explanation for your actions. It is a catchphrase, a tagline, a slogan and a motto.

The heart wants what the heart wants. It reminds me of Shakespeare, “Life is a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing.” Somewhere my high school English teacher Mrs. McDonnell is smiling. Little Jimmy actually remembered a line from Macbeth. See ma’am, I told you that I could hear just as well in sunglasses as without..

The heart wants what the heart wants. It is the kind of thing you hear people say when they are trying to explain why they are hung up on someone from their past. Or maybe it is what you say when you stop denying the love that is in front of you.

If love were rational, if it were based upon logic life would be easier. When I think about some of the things I have done because of love I want to scream. When I consider the self-inflicted misery I have endured I want to cry because it seems so very foolish. How could I waste so much energy on such a silly thing as a woman, a single woman. The world is filled with millions of women. It should be easy to replace her. It should be as simple as changing shoes, but it is not. It is not, it is not.

The heart wants what the heart wants. It does and mine has chosen someone that is far more special to me than all of the others. My lips remember hers. I can still feel her touch. The pillowcase has never been washed because I have this fantasy that I can still pull it close and smell her.

Sometimes I think that reincarnation must be real and that in a past life I must have stolen fire from the gods or committed some other heinous crime. Because there is no logical reason why I would be punished in this manner. I found the woman that completes me. I found the person that makes me whole and I let her go.

She would have stayed. She would have held my hand. She would have helped save my soul but I couldn’t say the words. I couldn’t make myself do it. Even though I knew it to be a simple thing. A brief plea for help and she wouldn’t have left me. I wouldn’t have been left to live in shadow and night. I could have been whole. Her love was enough to let me believe that I could have been something more.

But like I said, in that past life I did something. I earned the wrath of those who sit in judgment. Or maybe it is nothing like that. Maybe there is no reason why. Maybe this is all there is and happiness is based upon some sort of random something or other.

The heart wants what it wants and mine has betrayed me. In a different life it lay in a green garden beneath bright blue skies and now it is filled with weeds and fields of shattered stone and black night skies.

Once I might have hoped for salvation. Once I believed that I deserved better than this but now I understand that not to be so. Hades has issued his decree. I stand next to Sisyphus. Tantalus is my brother. Happiness is something that I can see but can’t reach.

The heart wants what the heart wants.

Hello and welcome to the Insomniac’s Theater. As you can see it is a bit rundown, somewhat ramshackle joint. It is a place that is not all that dissimilar to a carnival fun house. As you walk through you know that the reality you are experiencing is a bit distorted. Something is a bit off.
It is not as pronounced as the fun house mirror. You know the one that I am talking about. That wavy one that makes your body look fat/tall/short whatever.

It is not all that dissimilar to being drunk. You know that you are not right. You know that you are not quite as sharp as you should be but at the same time the alcohol says you are. It is that little voice in your head that claims that the fifth of whiskey hasn’t impaired your judgment. People should be pleased to speak with the new and improved you. It is version 2.0, enhanced and ready for action.

And then again that little voice whispers in your ear that maybe you really aren’t all that smart. Insecurities that during daylight hours grow to monstrous proportions. So you face a decision. Do you face the beast on your own. Do you shine a light on the darker part of your soul and accept your own frailties or do you give in to the demon.

C’mon, it is just another beer. Hell, might as well make it two or three. If you are going to dance with the devil then you really ought to tell him to go fuck himself. What is the point of exercising poor judgment with a care for the future. Georgie used to tell me to “liver hard.” Every time he said it he’d roar with laughter.

I can’t say if I laughed or smiled. I was beyond caring. Life had no meaning to it, no purpose. I wouldn’t say that I was living. I was alive, but I lived in the shadows. Black and white was all I could see and most of the time I didn’t bother to see at all because when I tried to all I could find was more evidence of how badly I had screwed up.

I loved her madly. I wanted to marry her and somehow she had slipped through my grasp. My girl with the sweet lips was beyond my reach and the only person I could blame was me.

So I set about punishing myself. I felt like I was incapable of loving and unworthy of being loved. And now you know why sleep was no longer my friend.

( Notes: I am considering tying this into here.)

I have a favor to ask of you. I am trying to get back into the swing of writing Fragments of Fiction. It would be most helpful if you could go read it here and then leave me a comment with your thoughts.

Let me know if you like it, hate it or anything between. I appreciate your help.