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I have lived in a cold world. I have lived in a world of robotic monotony, grey with indifference. I have been created by automatons in their own image, their residual power forever dictating the colour of my life.
But today there is a small, brightly burning, colourful light at the edge of my awareness. I cannot believe in this light or dare embrace its warmth but I begin to accept its impermanent existence. I miss it when it is gone and my world turns cold once more.
And yet I battle daily with this treasure, this gift that I do not deserve and can never hope to earn. How can something so eternally redundant suddenly be worthy of this attention?
I do not believe that she feels anything positive towards me. I will not even try to name this as ‘love’. For love is not something I can respect. Love is for the weak. Emotions are the things that rule those who do not survive in this world. If I am to respect her I cannot believe her capable of love, still less of loving some thing such as me. If I am to believe in her and believe in this work I cannot believe in love.
And yet there are times when I am overwhelmed by something inexplicable; an act, a gesture, some kind response to my unspoken need that causes something to call out from deep within ‘I am loved … I am loved’. But this cannot be. And the sensation fades to an empty, throbbing, yearning pain that can never be healed.
For wanting this, even imagining its existence I am shamed. I withdraw, defend and hide deep inside the essence of what I should have been. Barely-alive, barely-human, looking through a dirty window pane, watching as she walks away.
What ‘dare not speak its name’ is love itself in all its forms.