she said she cried, and it was because of me. More precisely, because of something : 11 : I wrote here. I am small enough for that to flatter me, even though she cries easily these days, with her father dying, and all. I am mute before her pain and need, yet I am all ears for her praise. I know I've been stuck, tragedy-dwelling and sadness-obsessed here in these pages, and I'm uncomfortable with that, because what I really want is to sing.
The world is full of lament, loud and noxious, a wailing often intended to repel any risk of human intimacy and to keep us safe from the very touch for which we cry. My world lacks a delicate sound, and I, a sensitive ear; a soft weeping gently offered as we come close, with a willingness to engage and care.
My growing stopped when my surviving began, so she weeps alone while I observe, uncomfortably mute and safely paralyzed. Hey, I'm way more sick of it than you could ever possibly be. Once, I held my own mother while she wept and screamed obscenities in the kitchen, just days after my father's only heart attack dropped him dead. But I didn't cry—I didn't know how. Most times, I still don't—except when I'm here.
Anything I would write about Phyllis—my delicate, sensitive friend—would sound like tedious, empty flattery here. But the effort makes me cry. And this is where I am able to; at the face of this benevolent Cyclops, a computer screen. If I pushed it off the desk, it would surely suffer. But it is impervious in the ways of real injury, it simply cannot suffer the inevitable injuries of the heart.
This computer screen cannot be damaged by my efforts to communicate, but every human countenance, that came as close as this to the contents of my heart, was darkened by injury after my facade of mature love collapsed, and revealed me as a poseur to intimacy. Every time I tried to be the mature adult I was expected to be, I was exposed as the scared child I am—every time I tried to be whole, I fell apart. I don't want to accept intimate access to another human heart until I learn the route into my own, and back out again. But to do that I will probably need to replace this monitor with a human face, and write these words, not on these dark pages, but on another's trembling heart.
another day is done; my heart is no less broken. But tonight, my heart is less alone. She and I share a gentle mist; not torrents of hysteria, rather a kind tearfall which invites us out of our isolation and into its soft droplets to enjoy its brief passing—together.
Another day is done, and I am no less old. My musings are ineffective against the encroachments of temporal limitations; tonight, the flesh is closer to spent than yesterday. But tonight, this flesh has done more, a little more, of what it came here to do. And tonight, there's a lovely mist...
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