Wednesday, October 13, 2010

in the stillness now

In his moments of extreme stillness now, and unchanging silence, and this destiny for solitude, he thought of days when he knew her, remembering times when he had spoken to her so many times, he thought, though he had never actually talked to her. His natural effusiveness in her presence, he remembered now, was clouded by an air of forced stillness and this lack of clarity into her thoughts gave her an advantage over him he thought, which to his surprise he had preferred then. He had taken her beauty for granted and had assured himself of her beauty so unquestioningly; he however was not sure of what she thought of the world or herself or him. Any resolve on his part to break this silence between them only increased the hush of forced silence between them, leading it to become more still, till this silence between them became a source of comfort to him in her presence, for this silence allowed him in whatever way he allowed it to, to make or a seal an invisible pact between them, he remembered now. In essence his reticence to express himself before her was matched equally by her equal resolve to hide behind her silence. Sometimes it seemed to him that perhaps these thoughts were only imagined by him in a state of heightened susceptibility, and that there was no reason now to think of her any differently from all the others, for actually what he recognized as a weakness in others occasionally he failed to recognize in himself and thus he did see into the possibility of him actually having fallen into anything resembling any proximity to her. This self examination now occasionally lead him into uncomfortable introspection, for to him admitting any idea of falling into love was an admission into defeat, even now. However, how could it be love if he had never even spoken to her and when they had never been at any sort of proximity? The romantic notion of love distilled into him from an early age, that almost keatsian insistence on unrequited passion had never moved him to any ecstatic vision of himself and yet in her presence, he let his heart beat ever so fast almost as if not doing so was an admission of guilt, a trespass against her inviolable beauty.

Had he not felt morose when autumn days without her had seemed bereft of any meaning and hadn't he on so many occasions felt intensely melancholic at the mention of her name, for any other person acknowledging knowing her was a proof to him of his own distance from her. However, thinking of those days now, he reminded himself that he had felt content on many occasions of at least knowing her, for not to know her seemed to him to be the admission of the first guilt if not the first sin. On azure days and on cold autumn afternoons, had her eyes not seemed to have called him? Had she not appeared to have wanted to talk to him and was he not convinced that the melancholy touch of her fingers was destined for him alone? Had he not written countless poems for her, scores of which he had discarded? Had he not imagined the silk of her hair , the inescapable water of her mouth, the rising tide of her moons? Had he not felt excruciatingly tortured when he could not remember at times the exact shape of her mouth? How many countless times had he imagined the two of them together, walking the streets that he had wanted them to walk together? Had he not visited these thoughts on infinite occasions and had he not felt the most melancholic pain in his heart whenever he tried to remember the exact end of all their meetings, after having failed to remember each? These thoughts gave him no comfort now for she had left all times including the silence between them far behind when she had left.

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