Remembering.
Seeing that picture of him was like a kick in the head…I cried out in agony remembering being beside him, hearing his voice, seeing his laughter light up his blue eyes.
I don’t know if who I love is real, but without question my love is real.
Listening to Hyper Music by Muse brought back so many memories. I played that CD driving to and from work every day for months…
It reminds me of how I started living on my own then, working every day, buying new clothes whenever I wanted to, getting hit on all the time, falling madly in love with the porter…and then seeing that smarmy, smirking guy in the white dress shirt with his dark hair slicked back and eyes not meeting mine. I disliked him immediately.
A year and a half later I sit in my house—jobless, wearing clothes a few sizes too big, cold and alone—and I smile a little at the notion of requited love. I can’t imagine it existing (for me) and don’t seek it out.
I sit here and smile and marvel at the depth of my ability to love—something yet undiscovered the spring before last.
Too bad it’s wasted on the likes of him.
There is small comfort in knowing that he knows how much I love him. That it’s not a joke, an infatuation, or a passing crush. It’s real. Deep, abiding, everlasting. I would hate to love someone so much and them not realize it…I suppose.
I have ransacked the encyclopedias
And slid my fingers among topics and titles
Looking for you.
And the answer comes slow.
There seems to be no answer.
I shall ask the next banana peddler the who and the why of it.
Or—the iceman with his iron tongs gripping a clear cube in summer sunlight—maybe he will know.
- Carl Sandburg, “Old-Fashioned Requited Love”
