On the breeze

Dear you

Last night I dreamt of your smile, and how beautiful that was, and for a moment I thought, perhaps she will relent tomorrow because she would not want to hurt me, because I had forgotten that my dreams do not have the power to move you. But I was awakened by a small but persistent voice that mocked me, saying "she does not even wish you to exist". Such is the pain of waking in the cold at 3am: you cannot tell whether your own heart is true or lies to you; you cannot know.

When I was a child, sometimes my mother would lose her temper with me and shout at me, but that never hurt, and I would just laugh. My sister S was smarter. She knew that I could only be hurt by demonstrating to me how easily love can be withdrawn, and that if she would not be angry with me, I would not feel the love that powers anger with those we are close to.

But I had then too great an opinion of myself and I thought that I could be loved and not just be for all my days someone who could just be taken or left as you pleased. They say that a lesson we learn begins when we are first born, and do not understand that the world is bigger than us; gradually, we come to realise that there are others, that there is a boundary between us and the rest of the world, and with time we are diminished, if we learn our lesson well, until we are able to be dismissed and not think so much of it, or at least, we are become so small that cast away we are like the leaves on the breeze, without meaning to those who pass by, and in ourselves, brittle, fading songs of vigour, no longer expecting to be heard by anyone, even ourselves, no longer even to hope that there will be a book we can be pressed in, kept and cherished, although while we have any green left us, any living cell, any piece that can still feel love however undesired it is, we remember the spring we were once part of and do not truly believe it is all used up.

D.

posted by Dr Zen @ 3:02 pm