desire

I want nothing more than the pleasure of knowing that the only thing more far gone than my self control around is yours around me.

"'Haven't I?' - He thought. 'Haven't I thought of it since the first time I saw you? Haven't I thought of nothing else for two years? ... He sat motionless, looking at her. He heard the words he had never allowed himself to form, the words he had felt, known, yet had not faced, had hoped to destroy by never letting them be said within his own mind. Now it was as sudden and shocking as if he were saying it to her ... Since the first time I saw you ... nothing but your body, that mouth of yours, and the way your eyes would look at me, if ... through every sentence I ever said to you; through every conference you thought so safe, through the importance of all the issues we discussed ... You trusted me, didn't you? To recognize your greatness? To think of you as you deserved - as if you were a man? ... Don't you suppose I know how much I've betrayed? The only bright encounter of my life - the only person I respected - the best businessman I know - my ally - my partner in a desperate battle ... The lowest of all desires - as my answer to the highest I've met ... Do you know what I am? I thought of it, because it should have been unthinkable. For that degrading need, which should never touch you, I have never wanted anyone but you ... I hadn't known what it was like, to want it, until I saw you for the first time. I had thought: Not I, I couldn't be broken by it .. since then ... for two years ... with not a moment's respite ... Do you know what it's like, to want it? Would you wish to hear what I thought when I looked at you ... when I lay awake at night ... when I heard your voice over a telephone wire ... when I worked, but could not drive it away? ... To bring you down to things you can't conceive - and to know that it's I who have done it. To reduce you to a body, to teach you an animal's pleasure, to see you need it, to see you asking me for it, to see your wonderful spirit dependent upon the obscenity of your need. To watch you as you are, as you face the world with your clean, proud strength  - then to see you, in my bed, submitting to any infamous whim I may devise, to any act which I'll perform for the sole purpose of watching your dishonor and to which you'll submit for the sake of an unspeakable sensation ... I want you - and may I be damned for it!"

- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged.

I don't like spending time with you in public. Not because of shame, but because the space between us always feels so charged, so full, so intimate, it seems indecent to expose others to such indecency.


"They kept their secret from the knowledge of others, not as a shameful guilt, but as a thing that was immaculately theirs, beyond anyone's right of debate of appraisal. She knew the general doctrine on sex, held by people in one form or another, the doctrine that sex was an ugly weakness of man's lower nature, to be condoned regretfully. She experienced an emotion of chastity that made her shrink not from the desires of her body, but from any contact with the minds who held this doctrine.

...

In the many months of his absence, she never wondered whether he was true to her or not; she knew he was. She knew, even though she was too young to know the reason, that indiscriminate desire and unselective indulgence were possible only to those who regarded sex and themselves as evil."

- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged.

"The privileges of knowledge have to be bought at the cost of the consolations of ignorance."

- Claire de Duras, Ourika

I remember.

I remember it all.

Too well, in fact. I remember my little cousins calling me off of the volleyball court, saying that our aunt was about to pick me up. I remember being afraid to leave them there by themselves with only my cell phone to call their mom. I remember getting into the backseat of my aunt’s car, looking over at my other cousin in the backseat, face covered in tears. Uncontrollable tears of my own before I had even heard anything specific. Rushing into the hospital. Wandering halls that smelled wrong; too sterile. Stumbling upon a crowd of people in the hall, signaling that we had found your room. Everyone was taking turns, because there was a limit on how many people were allowed in the room, or there just wasn’t enough space, or they just couldn’t bear to be there and see you that way for too long. We were all so scared. But it wasn’t so bad, because even though you looked scarily small and pale, the nurse told us that your recent coma was a “restorative sleep”.

I should have know better.

Shuffling in and out, between your room and the nearby lounge with small tables and cartoons on the television and coloring books, because it was the kids’ ward, after all. Someone thought to get a bunch of stuff from KFC, because there were a lot of people, and none of us were leaving anytime soon. We were in it for the long haul.

So we thought.

A door slamming open and a scream. That was all that I needed to hear. I couldn’t. I knew what had happened. Wandering hallways, lost. I stumbled upon a deserted nurses’ station, but decided that the floor opposite it, next to the gurney, was more appropriate.

Down.

Hugging knees, because that was all I had left.

Because you were gone, in a heartbeat.

Or lack thereof.

And then I heard someone else sniffling. It’s a wonder that I heard anything over the sounds in my head. Internally screaming, pleading, rationalizing, hoping. Nose dripping sniffles and body shaking sobs. I looked up and saw my cousin. My cousins, who I love with all my heart. My cousins, who I never expected to see cry in this lifetime, who I never expected to see me cry. No words. Just sitting at the nurses’ station like three misfits, hugging each other, trying to stop.

It took a long time.

And then we wandered, because seeing any other sick person would be better than going back and seeing the sick person who we had originally come here for. We saw the newborns, distorted by my tears. She told me that they had jaundice, but I didn’t notice. I was beyond seeing.

We went back, because we didn’t want to worry anyone. We were gone for a while. The hallway was still and quiet. And then your sister found us. She told us to come with her. To say our last goodbyes. I would have only went for her. We went in, and everyone was so calm. Rational. Reasonable. Kissed you on the forehead, told you how much they loved you, said goodbye. Commented on how cold you already felt. 

I couldn’t. I couldn’t get past the doorway. I stood and watched silently. I didn’t trust my voice. All I could do was apologize over and over in my head that I couldn’t be as strong as everyone else was.

i can't stand seeing people that i love suffer

i wish that i could take the pain for them
until i knew they were strong enough to handle it.

I have never understood why so many people enjoy Shakespeare, because I have certainly tried and failed, but, "These violent delights have violent ends", perfectly describes every love affair that I have ever been engaged in, because passion ignites my soul like a match, with all consuming flame, and like a match, just as suddenly as it is lit, all is consumed, and just as soon as it begins, it ends, with nothing but the blinding emptiness where the bright light once lived.

"One can, indeed one must, know all that is necessary to write correctly because, in my view, it is intolerable for women anyone to wish to speak well but write badly"

- The Story of Sapho, by Madeleine de Scudery

it's a good thing i can't seem to get you out of my life, because then i'd be emotionally stable

and then what would i write about?


surely nothing interesting.