November 9, 2010

I want to know if you love me, that's all anyone wants from anyone else, not love itself but the knowledge that love is there, like new batteries in the flashlight in the emergency kit in the hall closet. As long as it exists.

I like to see people reunited, I like to see people run to each other, I like the kissing and the crying, I like the impatience, the stories that the mouth can't tell fast enough, the ears that aren't big enough, the eyes that can't take in all of the change, I like the hugging, the bringing together, the end of missing someone. It's the tragedy of loving, you can't love anything more than something you miss.

Does it break my heart, of course, every moment of every day, into more pieces than my heart is made of, I never thought of myself as quiet, much less silent, I never thought about things at all, everything changed, the distance that wedged itself between me and my happiness wasn't the world, it was me, my thinking, the act of never letting go, is ignorance bliss, I don't know, but it's so painful to think, and tell me, what did thinking ever do for me, to what great place did thinking ever bring me? I think and think and think, I've thought myself out of happiness one million times, but never once into it. You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.

I'm so afraid of losing something I love that I refuse to love anything. Sometimes I imagine stitching all of our little touches together. How many hundreds of thousands of fingers brushing against each other does it take to make love? Why does anyone ever make love? Humans are the only animal that blushes, laughs, has religion, wages war, and kisses with lips. So in a way, the more you kiss with lips, the more human you are.

The more you love someone, the harder it is to tell them.

So how can you say I love you to someone you love?

Here is the point of everything I have been trying to tell you...

It's always necessary.

I love you.