2004-10-21
The Human Hope
�I hated hurting you, and I was torn up inside�it was such a horrible feeling�seeing you cry. Your tears brought me tears�� he said.
In my mind I want to think back and remember. Perhaps, understand him while that little voice inside of my mind says, don�t cry. don�t cry. don�t cry.
I start sobbing while he�s talking. Everything comes out�absolutely everything that I have been wanting to say, yet holding back, due to fear�perhaps fear to expose myself and leave my heart vulnerable.
�You didn�t care! You felt no remorse�even when I cried and told you how much I cared,� I say, accusingly.
�No�I did�I always have. It was a tough decision to make! I hated leaving you,� he says.
I�m there, with tears in my eyes and just wishing that I could understand him�just once. And finally, I make him say it�that the feelings shared between the both of us, since our break up, go beyond that of simple friendship.
I had to confess it�the etude�how the etude makes me think of him, and only him. Every time the melodies dance in the air like fragile, distant whispers, I cannot help but think of each kiss, or each smile, or each hug�these are memories�beautiful memories.
My heart has always struggled between both him and Roger�always. Yet, I am certain that my feelings for one of them are completely superficial.
There are things, I don�t forget�moments that have been painted into my memories, and, like vivid oils lit by the gentle light of Parisian streetlamps, they come alive each time I close my eyes.
Because my memories of summers are created by him�the glittering sidewalks illuminated by the afternoon sun, and my hand held within his. I yearn for so many moments�the first time his soft lips touched mine�that was happiness and wonder and delight. We were two children kissing in the afternoon breeze.
I miss the way I used to lay back in his arms, and when I�d look up, my gaze would meet his as he smiled softly, gently, warmly�
He knows everything, I am amazed that he can finish my thoughts�he reads me like a book.
Sometimes, I would not wish to be a simple, solitary autumn leaf floating and dancing about the river�s current. Our hearts are dark tunnels with one ray of light in the far distance, it must be a ray of hope�the simple hope�the human hope. It�s the type that will never escape us�it shapes our muted, nightly dreams, and it pushes us to smile and heave those pearl-colored sighs on winter mornings. Because of that little human hope, we find ourselves trembling within grey tempests. The poets who weep on silent, autumn evenings�and like the roses described by Lorca, the fragile petals of our souls are covered by the blanket of autumn�s chill, with only that single ray of light to warm us.
Though I have tried to find comfort in the cold light of the moon; or through the images of darkened rooftops after the evening rain; or in the feel of simply letting the memories flow by�I cannot suppress these things any longer.
Because of the light at the end�the human hope. In one of my dreams, as the champagne-blue cloud-waves swirled the stars in the midnight sky, the fisherman called out to me from his golden boat. And he said:
I sail these waters and collect the memories. There are so many�memories of summers and winters now lost to time�s deity. I�ve seen your memories float by, yet, I dare not catch them. Memories flow and haunt these waters, and some are best kept within the quiet chambers of the sky�s ocean�the whales will sing the story to me while I write it down in my sail�
We are forever drowning in an ocean of memories, dreams, and hope. Foolishly enough, I still have hope�
That he�ll stay and maybe we�ll catch trout like in Two Friends from Guy De Maupassant.
I remember this�that one winter morning you found my story written in the red clay�the red stone.