Perspective Finals

Introduction:

I know we've only just met, but before we dive in, I have a confession to make.

I am ignorant to love. I can't quantify it or pretend to understand the thousands of ways that it works.

But for you, I’ll try.

Love is not synonymous with the duality of an on-and-off switch. In my experience, it's more like a kid playing with a dimmer switch. It is consistent, but adapting all the time. We allow fear, borne in overthinking, to take the place of genuine outbursts of love. We refuse to see it as anything other than frustrating when we attempt to place the rules of our physical world on it. I believe that we're attracted to those who make us see new things about ourselves, people who can provide us with the things that we're lacking, whether that be in the form of understanding, strength or support.

I used to think that not voicing negative thoughts was enough to take away their power. I was wrong. There is so much strength in confronting uncertainty, discomfort, vulnerability, pain and trauma. There is beauty in saying exactly what you're feeling when you feel it. Uncensored emotion is taboo and maybe that's why we see flash mob proposals and PDA as so infringing. Because they represent a union between carnal instinct and structured regiments.

I always start to prepare how I'll feel about an event later, as that same event is taking place, making up my mind about how I feel toward the people involved and what this rupture will mean for my self-perception. I can be at a party without really being there. There's something so finite about cataloging experiences immediately and I wish I were better at simply experiencing instead of noticing every little detail in real-time.

But then, what you're about to read would be very different.

So here goes:

Like writing, love demands subject matter. This happens to be about you.

You are an amalgamation of the things I've loved about other people: true tenderness, sarcasm and wit, transparency, honest intimacy paired with no desire to hide your love for it, theatrics, spontaneity, ambition, and sincere critique. It is not my intention to point these tendencies out in order to hurt you or even to bring up the shadow-side of their positivity.

If anything, I'm condoning your behaviour, and that's something I don't often do.

1.

The world feels like it's ending.

But does really feel that way today?

It's ending all the time in every small way, isn't it?

Seasons and meals and cut flowers in vases, sunrises and sunsets are all ending right now.

Which makes this beginning all the more bittersweet.

FACING PAGES

I didn't know that a person could be so tender, so worshipping,

that they could make me want to cry.

You're like a good book I wish I'd written

and so I'm forced to be totally transparent.

How do you make yourself so familiar to me?

2.

I don't know how your voice modulates between sunrise and sunset

or how to reach out for you when you start to slip away.

A stranger I barely know who feels as familiar as my own reflection.

I wonder how to regulate my daydreaming when

I want nothing more than to be in a bed that smells like you

with you, wanting me there.

I want to feel like I'm taking up space

that I'm meant to occupy

and somehow still be alive. CUT?

Right now I feel everything,

and everything feels like a slap in the face.

It feels impossible to stop wanting you.

I can't change what I want,

and I certainly don't want to run if I don't think you'll chase me.

So I keep my feelings with me like allies

because without them, I'd be accepting defeat.

Could this be a love that I carry with me silently forever?

And can it last much longer?

Because I'm not sure that I will.

So I'm making up my mind to refuse to ask for one thing and accept its opposite,

as I'm used to doing.

I'll allow love to take the place of fantasy and use fantasy as hope instead

because sacrifice always has its desired effect.

3. Si no like

‘I’m very attracted to you’

the words felt and sounded right, correct,

like lyrics to a song I thought I’d forgotten,

but that didn’t stop the blood from rushing to my ears.

//

I laugh when I'm uncomfortable

and you say that you appreciate how someone can find life and all its broken pieces so humorous.

I'm not sure that any of those things are true.

I listen to words spoken and acted out,

looking through the cracks in the façade.

I'll never tell you that the reason that you scare me

is because you see right through mine.

I remind myself that being comfortable enough to show your scars

proves that you are unafraid of the deadness of your past.

4.

Then, I needed to tell you how much I wanted you,

but it didn't seem relevant.

So I'll continue to live my life in majorities and not absolutes.

I'm usually in the business of getting what I want.

I should've kissed you again before you left,

because it's all I wanted to do, but I was too afraid of what it could mean.

You seemed so sure of yourself

and I felt that my own confidence levels paled in comparison.

My inferiority complex developed then,

but no more.

Instead, my panic manifests itself in desperate urges to send you a message at 4am

that tells you I'm irrationally attached to you and that I'm backing out.

But I don't.

Because I know I would be doing a disservice to myself

to pass up the opportunity to be extremely happy with/because/in spite of you.

The only thing that scares me is drowning.

5.

How can you know that what you’ve found is “true love?”

Does something unlock itself inside of your chest?

And does the sound of that hinge opening

take up permanent residence under your rib cage?

Is there a newfound urge to reject any invasive thoughts of unworthiness?

Is true love a feeling of sinking in?

Found in the long moment just before you fall asleep in your own bed,

in the familiar rhythm of movement in the foyer;

sounds of a body returning home to yours?

Or is true love a surprise ice cream cone nudged into your hand by someone who knew you’d want one too

(even though you said you were sure you didn’t)?

Is it a whisper that forces your eyes open

or a brief scream of adoration that throws you off-balance?

In the split-second when you realize there wasn't another step down to the landing,

Some truth found in your inability to argue that anything has changed about yourself.

6.

I exhale sharply without meaning to,

incapable of saying or doing anything.

I turn to look at you again and your body's already against mine.

You use your mouth before your words

while your hands restrict my wandering ones.

You rest your forehead against mine and I feel like I could die.

Your palm presses into my hip like you want to become a part of me

and I don't think about moving.

I feel at home in my body with you,

a nice change from forgetting I have one at all.

But let's not confuse power with dominance,

because my trust does not lie in your arrogance.

I like the sounds you make when you're in my mouth

and to feel your hubris fade when my name's in yours.

You let out a sigh so intense that it sounds like an apology.

I hear something past the wavering of your breath when my lips brush past your neck,

a vote of confidence that I can return the favour.

Not charity, just retribution...

or revenge if those are your terms.

Control is given, and belongs to no one,

and time will always be more powerful than you.

7.

Loneliness has taken on new meaning.

No longer based in the fear of exclusion,

the fear now comes from confronting ourselves,

the parts that we're usually too distracted to examine.

They're finally rising to the surface,

unrequested and unwanted;

a stack of unopened letters from an old lover

that's long awaited revision/long been waiting to be sifted through.

8.

When you act passively, I'm aware that what I'm wary of

is not having an opportunity to accuse you.

I can never be angry with you for sacrificing a conflict.

You accept that we are different people

and always will be.

How can I blame you for your acceptance?

Still, some mornings I wake up and feel as though I couldn't want you any more.

Others, I'm terrified at the thought of not wanting you anymore.

I think I could be in love with someone like you

and the next day I decide that I never want to think of you again.

Words are not absolutes,

and they never have been.

You don't strike me as someone who's afraid of saying something they might actually mean.

So say how you feel and don't leave a single thing out, I'm all ears.

Because I know there's a difference between what you feel you can't say

and what you decide you never will.

Cutting room floor?:

Do you not enjoy feeling powerful?

Or are you uncomfortable when you're reminded of how much power you have?

9.

I'm convinced that someday I'll know you so well that I won't know how to love you anymore.

I hope I never feel like I've figured you out enough to get to that point.

Then, the intrigue of you would vanish with your mystique

and I haven't decided if I'm more afraid of abandoning or being abandoned.

Maybe when the time comes, they'll feel like the same thing.

For now, I'm melancholic for things that have yet to happen,

impasses we've yet to be confronted with.

Could I get too comfortable with your body?

Or worse, could you get too used to mine?

God forbid someone actually try to get to know me.

There's nothing I fear more than the mundane,

something wonderful fading quietly until it's imperceptible.

It's irrational, but I never want to cease being amazed.

I've never been so curious to know a body that isn't my own.

I'm afraid that I'll always want more of you

and more from you.

I can't decide what's fair.

Are either of our egos big enough to believe we could avoid normalcy?

Or are we such great critics that we'll never stop finding new things to appreciate?

What makes me think that we'll know each other long enough to know the difference?

There's only one way to find out.

10.

I’m terrified that one day you’ll destroy me

and it won't be the result of something malicious you’ve planned.

But you’ll say something small and it will break me beyond repair

and make me question everything I'd thought I’d learned about you.

After all, I only pretend to know every. single. thing,

things that have become just as much a part of my own identity

as they are my perception of yours.

INDENT

I’ll resent you for changing the person I was when you met me,

even though that’s exactly what I asked you to do the second that I met you

//

I’m scared that I’ll fuck you up,

someone so good and worthy of love.

I can never forget that enjoying your company

helps me to like myself, too.

I could so easily break you without thinking twice about it.

Because we've loved each other, I could turn you inside out.

My anxieties about this lay in everyday movements:

in the tension between your fingers when you take my hand in yours,

when you turn away from me in bed, moving just a little too far out of reach,

in the way you let go of me as if it won’t be the last time.

11.

My masochistic urge to not ask you for what I want is getting absurd.

I know I'm afraid of being told the truth

while I prepare to turn good memories into distant ones.

Instead, I stay here in limbo because it's dramatic and exciting

(and secretly I love it).

Each day my anxiety reaches new heights, not knowing that I have the remedy.

What lies beneath is an unspoken question, being:

"do you want to be with me?"

or maybe it's "are you willing to try?"

But I'm not ready to ask

so I'll choke on passivity and

bite down on my tongue when I fall asleep

before you tell me that you're ready to take it from me.

Until then, I'll spend time getting comfortable with discomfort.

12.

People have come and gone and I have always left their leaving up to them.

They always come back and tell me tales of things that remind them of me,

beautiful and reassuring all at once, until they tell me that I am out of their league.

I'd rather let someone hurt me than be able to say that I hurt them.

So stay until I tell you to go and I'll never ask you to leave.

//

I'll fill pages in vain, trying to sum up how it felt to almost be in love,

about how to avoid a broken heart by keeping my balance,

an action that's heartbreaking in itself.

It seems that the harder I pull the idea of you away from my heart,

the deeper I feel you burrowing in.

Soon you'll be a splinter I only remember once a season.

13.

"Normal" people do not exist.

People who willingly conform do exist

and so do those who are complicit and are content to remain so.

I will not waste my youth

by not advocating for equity and justice.

Because if we stop talking, it will be deafening.

How strange it is to accept a quarantined state as the new normal

when not much has changed.

This new perspective exposes the hate that was there all along

We will not return to "normal" once isolation ends

We will return to whatever state of normalcy is the most widely accepted.

What that is, is a decision that falls in the hands of all of us.

14.

I miss open bars at weddings and art openings and touching an acquaintance’s arm because they’ve just said something incredulous,

linking arms with a friend just because it felt good to be with them.

I miss asking someone “you want to come up?” after a long, satisfying kiss,

reaching for the same item on the grocery aisle shelf and squeezing as many tomatoes for firmness as I pleased.

I miss swimming pools and picnics in the park,

dicking around the cul-de-sac with the other kids.

I miss the plate of watermelon slices left out all day, turned hot by the sun,

a dive bar’s flat beer in glasses whose cleanliness I can't help but question.

I miss professions of “ok, I’ll come out for just one drink…” and meaning it. Or not meaning it at all,

walks to lunch and missing the train, hopelessly beating yourself up internally about it.

I miss holding the door for strangers and not thinking twice about our proximity, maybe even enjoying it.

Closing:

Rien n’est certain

Mais je me sens qu’il n’y a personne qui pourrait me faire ressentir comme ça.