Is longing only achievable with knowledge of a target for it? I wonder if a small bird kept in a childs room instinctively dreams of open skys even through its ignorance of them?
Yes. There must be something burried in the soul of all creatures which makes them feel unbearably culpable of thier disguarded fate, even when unaware of it. The same instinct that causes me to be crushed by the weight of places I’ll never go. The longing that makes my heart ache for passion and love, which I certainly know nothing of. Perhaps I’ve kept myself intentionally bereft all this for so many years that my daydreams have become deep-rooted and habitual. I wonder if maybe it is not a matter of instinct, but of compulsions born from continuously running from everything I secretly desire. Perhaps it is all my doing. Suppression is, after all, the main culprit behind all compulsions. So here is whats left; Twenty-nine years without fascinating journeys abroad or whirling, singular love stories. Twenty-nine years of self-inflicted disillusionment.

Outside my window, I can hear the rhythmic juxtaposition between the scraping sound of the wind against the top of the lake out back and the grinding of cars on the highway pavement about a half-mile down the road. Car alarms and birds chirp flirtingly back and forth to one another and burrow themselves into my subconscious – to be used in dreams at a later time. My desires and fears tangle into one another like the most insufferable fabric that separates life, awaiting just past my windowsill, and my all my years of abandoning it to pursue an existence compiled of nothing more than vivid daydreams with images taken from books I’ve read and pictures I’ve seen. Yes, even my fantasies are stolen.

I thought about writing her today,  but my body would certainly cripple and my fingers would snap in all cardinal directions. This is one of the many inconveniences Ive collected through life. How could I write her as such a tangled, broken mess? And what, anyway, would I ask of her? ‘I cant have you back, but please dont go away?’ The foolishness bubbles up beneath my skin and I may as well just smash my face endlessly against the blank page in front of me and have whoever finds me – snapped and splattered – mail it to her, still dripping dark red with my insecurities.

The inconveniences I’ve collected through life drape fittingly about my limbs.
I wear a hideous fabric that only she would adore.

I rummaged through my head for memories to live in.
     It was 5am the other night that I found her standing at my door. Im still not entirely sure how she got here. A strong current must have ripped her from her life and the undertow must have dragged her towards me, down to the bottom of the world where I make my home.
       I watched as she took a drag of her cigarette. The dull light from its end revealed her eyeliner, diluted and pooling grey beneath her eyes. I wished she wouldnt cry but it makes my heart ache for her. The only thing more lovely than her misery was her happiness and I felt greedy for wanting it all. It was her curse that she would have such a wonderful glow, even under duress.  The whole ‘rest-of-the-world’ surrounding her was pitch black and meaningless to me. Im amazed that shes here. Im amazed at her tangled, wet blonde hair and I’m amazed at the new cuts on her hands.  We sat on the dock over the lake and talked about the futility of modern romance, the deaths of our fathers and the dismantling of whats left of our sanity. 

These are the memories that allow me to live here alone. 29 years of nothing else suits me just fine. These daydreams – and my garment of inconveniences draped over me to keep me warm.

She spoke about a crooked, old, wooden house in the dark that visits her at night. A reacurring dream she had or, perhaps its a coping mechanism that allows her to participate in this world, but as she rests her head at night, she wakes up frantic in that terrible place.
The house represents a rusty safety-deposit box in the back of her mind and its inhabitants were thousands of traumas and tragities she suffered through life pieced together to compose scowling, putrid creatures that live in the attic and, at night, slither thier raw bodies down the steps to tangle themselves in her blonde hair.

I feel as if that is where I first met her, in the den of that creeking, old house.
That den was the eye of a great storm that streched the expanse of her entire life. We lived there – so temporarily – among the dusty books on the shelves, and we traded them as if what we couldn’t express through tongues or our bodies pressed against one another could be effectively spoken through those pieces of literature. But I knew I had to leave soon. I did not belong in her dreams no more than she belonged in the home I’ve made for myself at the bottom of the world.

That is the curse of a disobedient mind like mine. The drive that constantly lures me to her – To a life I know nothing of and a love that finds me unsuitable. Is the same drive that pulls me away, trembling and guilt-ridden. What was I doing in that old house? How did I find the key? What brought me to that den burried deep in her mind? Did I come there to dangle the illusion of safety in front of her?

I am irrefutably driven by the bleakness of this life and cannot help but to call out to her, endlessly, from below. From the bottom of the world where I made my home. I sing to her like a caged bird in a small childs room and what could I bother to expect?  Of course I could not expect her to stand outside of this terrible cage of mine and be content. And what would happen if she awakes in that forsaken old house at night?  My arms would fall short desperately reaching out to her through my rusted bars.
They would cripple and my fingers would snap trying to hold her and keep her safe.

29 years of disguarded fates and barren fields. 29 years of waiting in that den holding an old skeleton key and calling out to something I instinctively know awaits, yet am still unable to bare. Something that I somehow know of, but still couldn’t possibly fathom.

I threw the blank paper away and went back to the windowsill.

I still sing to her from my cage. Even through my ignorance.