“Never regret thy fall,
O Icarus of the fearless flight
For the greatest tragedy of them all
Is never to feel the burning light.”
-Oscar Wilde
It’s nighttime. The sky hangs like a gigantic black blanket
above me, with the stars sprinkling across it like twinkling fairy dust. I am
in love with the night. I love the way the light, brisk air encompasses you and
I love the feeling of being the only person in the world, as everyone is tucked
away, sleeping cozily in their beds, in their own little dream-worlds. I love
being able to count my breaths, one by one, letting the night air fill my
lungs. But I can feel the dawn approaching. The sun will be coming out soon.
The sun will slowly creep over the horizon, eventually blazing brightly in the
sky. As I see the bright oranges and yellows being painted into the sky, I know
that soon, I will have to get my wings ready. While I would love for the night
to accompany me again so that I can have a few more hours of peace and rest, I
know that the sun is my true destiny. It’s funny how that works; sometimes all
we want is some peaceful moments, without all of the hustle and bustle of the
outside world, yet in the end, the chaos is what drives us. The sun is my
destiny, my purpose. Every day, even when I’m exhausted and drained from
chasing it the day before, I can’t stay away. I will forever fly towards to the
sun, no matter what it costs me, no matter how many times I get burned. I will
fly towards the sun until I eventually set myself on fire, burning and blazing
in the sky until there is nothing left of me.
I can’t stay away from you. The obstacles are endless for
us. Every logical part of me knows that this will end badly, most likely with
my heart ripped into shreds, without any possible way to put it back together.
But I am drawn to you. Everything about you fascinates me in ways that I have
only read about. The humorous thing about it is, I can’t pinpoint exactly what
it is about you that has bewitched me so. Is it your sweet laugh that you emit
when I make a stupid joke? Is it your face, the one that makes my heart skip a
beat every time I see it? Is it your sexy, deep voice that I only hear late at
night when we’ve been talking for hours and we’re both becoming sleepy? Is it
the anticipation that I feel every time I even think about seeing you? Whatever
it is, it has consumed me. Since the day we met, my heart has been yours. My
mind is yours. My body is yours. You have acquired the entire package that is
“me”, and you didn’t even have to try very hard to attain it.
There have been so many times that we left. We walked away
with no intentions of coming back. Deep down, I think we have tried walking
away because we know this could never work. There is always too much; too much
going on, too much distance, too much arguing, too much loving, too much
doubting. Too much. We would go about our lives, going through the motions, yet
we somehow always find our way back to each other. Why can’t we stay away from
each other when we already know what the finale consists of? One or both of our
hearts will be broken. There’s honestly no way around it.
What do you do when the only thing that you want is
something that a) is bad for you and b) is something you can never truly have?
I’ve never experienced this kind of desire, this need. You hijack my day-to-day
thoughts and spread through them like a plague. The littlest thing reminds me
of you, and then I’m sent into a tailspin of memories and feelings about you. I
want you so desperately. My heart is your plaything, to pick up and tinker with
when it amuses you and then place on the shelf when you’re bored. Meeting you
has been the best thing and the worst thing to happen to me. You opened my
heart after a long period of it being locked away, closed for business. I will
always be grateful for that. But the treacherous part that came along with that
is the fact that you have made me weak. I’m not strong enough to let you go. I’m
not strong enough to steal my heart back and hide it from you, disabling you
from ever finding it again.
So, I will keep flying. Every morning, when the scorching
sun makes its way into my sight again, I will strap on my wings and take
flight. I want to bask in its radiance and feel the warmth on my bare skin. The
intensity of its luminescence is so enticing, I’m afraid I will never be able to
deny it. I will ignore everyone’s warnings, just like Icarus, and I will keep
trying to fly as close to it as possible. I know this makes me look like a
Class A Idiot and not the intelligent person that I am, but when I see its
fiery rays, I could not care less. The sun may not be good for me; it may give
me hideous burns and it may hurt like hell, causing me to realize that it
doesn’t love me back. Chasing it may cause me to miss out on the beautiful
stars that light up the night sky. In fact, in reality, the sun is just a star.
However, the sun that I am so fervently chasing is the closest one. My entire solar
system revolves around this star. If I dared to travel farther, I may just find
that the rays from another star don’t hurt. In fact, I might find that I can
reap all the wonderful benefits that I gain from my sun, without all of the
pain and exhaustion.
I am quite certain that I will end up being burned to ashes
from pursuing this. I will end up charred and broken, from loving the sun too
much and only wanting to be close to it. Maybe someday I will find the strength
to move on to other stars. But until then, I will continue to fly dangerously
close to you, my brilliant sun.
When I first read this, it moved me incredibly because of how much I can relate to it. I know the type of feelings you describe, although I have only truly experienced them once before in my life. This reminds me of my ex-fiancé, and in fact, you posted this on what would have been our fourth anniversary. May 16th, 2009 is a date I may never be able to forget. However, that part of my life lies in the past, and there it shall remain. I can not speak for her, but I do know that I saw all the warning signs associated with our relationship. And even still, I chose to pursue it. I chose to "Fly Too Close to the Sun." I think the greatest warning sign of all was when she lost her engagement ring. You see, her family could of made it on to the show "Hoarders." And growing up around that mess, I guess it just rubbed off on her, because her room was an overabundance of useless papers, junk, etc. Finally convincing her to get rid of it was hard, but I was successful. I can no longer recall an exact number, but it took several trash bags to clean it all out. Only after putting them in a maggot infested trash shed did she realize that she must of accidentally thrown it away. As I emptied every bag searching for it, she kept growing impatient, telling me to just give up. I was determined to find it though, and as I emptied the last bag, pushing around papers and maggots she exclaimed in frustration "Ugh! Just give up Trey! It's gone!" As she began to storm up the stairs, I looked down to see the ring gleaming from the porch light on the concrete. Her not keeping track of the expensive ring I put on her finger was one thing, but to tell me to give up shook me on the inside. Despite this, I still chose to continue our relationship. My point, although involving a complex thought, is relatively simple. You can not know that something isn't going to work until it simply doesn't. A couple of months later, she came home from college for fall break. I will not say why, but I chose to end our relationship, even though I didn't want to. It just wasn't going to work. I do not know who you are speaking of, or if they are even still a part of your life. I do know that you are intelligent and I don't even have to say this, but I feel like my thought would be incomplete without doing so. Don't walk away until you are sure, and don't be afraid to walk away if you have to.
ReplyDeleteAnyways, I would love to see you put something new on here soon! You have a real talent for it and you'll always have a fan in me. Keep it up!