Black

Love? What is love? Love eternal, on the other hand...well, can love last eternally? Love only lasts as long as one allows it to remain; and to remain eternal is another thing entirely. We fall in love in an instant and fall out of love in the same. Like a flicker it's past and we're off in search of some new flame to kindle our smoldering desire for passionate amity. This time of year people become foreign and Christmas dissects their emotions to reveal the hidden depression or undisclosed affection buried within their hearts. We either cling to each other or wind up remembering the people we no longer cling to.

It's the time of year people either get married or commit suicide; sometimes both. It's kind of liberating.

I keep watching everyone else fall apart and it makes me happy knowing that I fell apart first. It's a horrible game to have won, but a victory nonetheless. It's been a balanced scale of passion and misery, where for every wedding band there lies unfaithfulness, and for each engagement photo taken, another's photo album is thrown in the fire to be forgotten...and somehow I've found myself in the middle of all this trying to make sense of it all. Apparently my affinity for relational collapse comes as a strange form of solace for most, as I perpetually find myself taking the position of counselor; a strange calling for someone with such a strong sense of calloused apathy to be given. Regardless, it's left me thinking and makes me remember why closeness often frightens me. At least in its initial stages. Growing up sucks. I've thought a lot about that too, actually. I grew up once. It nearly killed me. Maybe the whole thing was wrong. You've grown up and turned into this beautiful woman; you may be throwing your whole life away by doing so, but hey, at least you'll look pretty during the transition; while I, miserable I, remain desperately clinging to the same boyish youthfulness and child-like fantasies of yesterday. I keep chasing things that you claim to support me in from the comfort of your quaint two bedroom condominium in the darling suburbs. I guess I just grew up differently. Maybe we never grew up at all.

All of these things run through my head. I sit here awhile while I try to sort them out and make sense of everyone else's destruction. A message from an old girlfriend comes in and I realize, for the first time, that we're all in the same situation. I disregard the flirting comments and pretend to be oblivious to her obvious attempts to hook up. We talk awhile. Say goodnight and it's over. Hopefully forever. I kind of laugh a little. It's grey outside now. I guess it's finally Christmas; the time of year when everybody's looking for somebody and nobody wants to be the somebody nobody else is looking for. I'm glad I'm alone. Maybe things are easier that way. Maybe things have been perfect all along...