6 months ago, I fell in love for the first time... and was rejected for the first time. This is what I wrote in the deepest of depressions:
I flew against the wind guiding the flock of birds to land at a spring few knew about,
Among those who drank from it was another whose song made my wings ache.
They ached with a deep and dull pain that commanded me to hold her in their fold,
Yet she drinks from this spring and another that I can’t fly to,
A spring guarded by the same wind that guided all others away.
My wings ache from effort and can’t but must flap for me to reach that grander spring,
A spring having dreams I never knew I wanted to reach but only learned of from her song,
Even if I never knew if she was singing to me.
All I knew was she liked to drink with me,
Meanwhile I find myself aching to sing to her as we drank,
I find myself wanting to fly to that grander spring with her only,
And I find myself wanting to fly wherever she went, all to drink whatever we could together,
Where she drinks from the grander spring, I must fly to that spring too,
That spring of the highest knowledge of the world,
Where those who drank from it purified it,
And I only wish to join if she were there with me.
When we drank, I asked to fly with her, but her song wasn’t meant for me.
Now what aches far more than my wings was returning to the same place I was before,
Where hope never existed except to drink from springs that cost me a cast of worries,
And my wings, now heavy from carrying shattered hope, no longer flap.
Yet I still wish her the best, because the aches are still there,
And while hope is shattered that I may ever ache for another again with them aching for me,
I wish her to be better than me and to live the life I wanted for both of us,
For that is what it means to wish the one you love the most the best.
How does a man stay being a man, when jealousy is man at his worst and man at his most?
When his dreams are crushed and replaced by flawed wishes,
When his sorrows fade and a dull sense of life and hawk-eyed views of twos surrounds him,
How can he continue to fly, drink, and worry?
Oh, you who flies with her, how do I wish the best for me and the best for you?
How do I know you wish the best for her too?
Reassure me of her happiness so my burdens will perhaps be lightened,
And they will sink even further pulverizing what remains of my dreams with her,
My guilt became darker as my hope lightened imagining all my nights with her,
Drinking from all the springs of knowledge until we sleep in pure embrace,
From where can I even seek my shame absolved,
Except from her and God the Almighty Forgiver above?
Yet I don’t feel His embrace either, just as all feelings have faded since.
Tell me, you who drinks with her, how do you drink with her?
Reassure me of her happiness so my passions will fade a little more,
And they will reignite when my blind eyes see her charm once again.
Even thinking of the shame has left me exhausted, adding itself with the guilt and hopelessness.
My hours became days, and my weeks became seconds.
Not a moment passes by with me forgetting you, nor a day when I can bear to think of you,
Because the song you sang is forever ingrained into my memories,
Added as a drop to the dry reservoir of what little I drank with you.
Oh, you who can think of her every day, how do you think of her?
Reassure me of her happiness so my memories can finally erase her,
And the erasure will be undone when I remember her again.
I’m left with no one to complain my emptiness to,
No other sufferer with the patience needed to failingly console me,
While time itself has been the worst console, forcing the emptiness to consume through me.
And my future is gone save for the hollow gilded palace I know I will soon live in,
The reward for all the drinking and cast of worries I now carry alone.
Oh, you who will live in a humble abode filled with her as all of your life,
Reassure me of her happiness so that my hollow palace can peacefully gather dust,
And it will collapse since there was only one column carrying the ceiling.
I’m left wondering if my faded feelings were even real,
Ever since my delusions of happiness were shattered, so too was my reality.
Did I only want to spend my nights with you,
Or did I truly care to pass the days with you too?
I lost my will to think about the answer, for my will can’t change reality anyway.
Oh, you who will feel for her, tell me you truly feel for her,
Reassure me of her happiness so that my feelings can be purified,
And they will be forever stained as long as I keep them.
Tell me, you who heard her song too, was it a siren song or was it a call to prayer?
I must know if I should never listen to such music again,
Since the worst torment besides my world ending, is her song finishing.
Tell me if I should stop singing myself, calling out in my dreams to hummingbirds like her,
If I knew this would happen before flying to this spring,
I’d have flown with the wind and then clipped my wings.
Reassure me of her happiness so that all of this was for nothing,
Because if it wasn’t, then all that’s left is to risk nothing flying back to her.
If you never shared burdens with her,
If the passions you had were feeble,
If your memories were forgetful,
If you never built that abode,
Or your feelings were ever even once never true,
I will make sure the emptiness in which I sink ever deeper pulls you in with me,
And I will trade back the hope I lost, even if I give my empty life,
For her happiness I would pay more.
The struggles of drinking from springs with squall-like winds,
The cost of cast of worries from its effects, who can bear these alone?
Burdens by nature must be shared to be lightened, defeating their effects part by part,
For the one who carries all of them alone is too pressed, pressured to enjoy their rewards.
If I knew you never helped carry her burdens,
I will carry all of hers along with mine myself,
I will make sure you carry all of yours and yours alone just as I currently do mine,
And I will trade back the strength I lost, even if I give my weak life,
For her happiness I would pay more.
That darkness which consumed me to the point I couldn’t even see green, red, or even blue,
Sleeping in an underworld where faint songs of birds and bees stir you,
And all you can do is spend the night unable to hear rest or hear or rest,
If I knew that for even a second you didn’t share the same tune with her,
I will make sure to join in singing those calls with her,
I will make sure the drought in which I thirst ever deeper in dries you instead of me,
And I will trade back the passion I lost, even if I give my deprived life,
For her happiness I would pay more.
Out in the world, among the wettest forests and driest deserts,
There will be moments where the slightest whiff of resemblance will remind me of her.
I will have moved on from the painful memories, only to look back melancholically.
But if I knew that you forgot her for even a moment,
I will remember her constantly,
Making sure that she erases you,
And I will trade back the thoughts of being with her I lost, even if I give my forgotten life,
For her happiness I would pay more.
That hollow palace I can no longer imagine building,
Its bricks collapse moment by moment.
Comfort that must be earned relies on effort knowing you will enjoy it,
But with only 1 person enjoying a palace, why should 1 build it?
If I knew you never put effort building an abode for her,
I will start building mine faster than before.
I will make sure to lock you out of what will become extravagant halls,
And I will trade back the comfort I lost, even if I give my poor life,
For her happiness I would pay more.
In my faded feelings and jaded senses,
I find myself tired of life itself.
If all of it was meant to live making life while death stops all pleasure and pain,
Then the pain I feel and the pleasure you have doesn’t matter.
Yet if I knew you never felt that pleasure with her,
I will make sure that I feel it instead.
I will make sure that the sorrow I feel drags you too so that only death gives you pleasure,
And I will trade back the happiness I lost, even if I give my sad life,
For her happiness I would pay more.
And for all I suffered being alone,
I know I will live on,
Accepting that she doesn’t wish to suffer with me,
I may even look back fondly as just another spring I drank from,
Knowing how to handle the side effects of drinking love.
For all I know from what I drank, she may have even wanted to drink with me all this time,
But I kept ruining the water just by mentioning its taste.
If I knew she didn’t love you and did actually love me,
How strongly what little I drank would start acting again!
The strength, passion, memories, future, and love itself would all become a yet new spring,
Gushing with hope as the Zamzam spring does.
And the knowledge that I shouldn’t waste any moment not caring for her,
I would make sure she knows I listen, and I know she listens.
What happiness and pleasures, comforts and memories,
1 could finally live being part of 1!
Alas, the feelings are no longer there, faded as how I needed cruel time to treat me.
And the happiness I wish for her already assured by what her song’s tunes were the whole time.
I wish I knew how to listen better, perhaps it would help with the next song I hear.
Yet I dare not hope to hear a new song,
Since it would call me to a new spring,
It would drown me in all the anticipations of love,
I would find that the song wasn’t being sang to me,
And I would fall into that darkness again.
I may as well clip my wings, plug my ears, and blind my eyes,
For flying through storms like love makes me wish,
It makes me dearly wish, I never had hearing, sight, or taste instead.