The Hunger

He walks down the beach in the dark. Shadows flash and creep from the quicksilver light of the fireworks over the Mt Lavinia Hotel. The sand is crowded and noisy. Children pointing at the coloured fire that shoots through the sky but doesn’t interest him. Couples stroll, intimately close, hands touching, lips brushing. The slant of a head, the flash of an exquisite smile tugs at his gaze, and he devours her with his eyes. She walks on. It isn’t her. He scans the faces, as he has time after time, looking for her, again and again.

He has looked for her in a hundred faces, hoping, longing for that moment, dreading it. Every trishaw that passes is peered into. Every car.

He lives for that moment, that split-second, into which will be packed a lifetime of love and need. The trishaw is alongside him, and he feasts his eyes on her — the perfect, delicate lips, carved by a God taking extra care — the long lashes that cover dark mahogany eyes that don’t see him — the arch of her eyebrows, the curve of her cheek. He can taste her in that half second, smell her, touch her. The light strokes her hair. And then the moment is gone, and so is she.

He sits at the table on the sand, and drinks his Carlesberg in untasting sips. His friends talk to him and he thinks of her.

Learning Love

Love is a feeling to be learned
It is tension and fulfillment
It is a deep longing and hostility
It is gladness and it is pain
There is not one without the other.
Happiness is only part of Love
This is what has to be learned
Suffering belongs to Love also
This is the mystery of Love
Its beauty and its burden
Love is a feeling to be learned.
–Walter Trobish

The Fear

It eats at him all the time. Every minute, every moment. Is this all there is? Is this all there ever will be? A history of betrayal like a history of violence that can’t be shaken. Coffee and endless cigarettes. Alcohol that dulls the pain for awhile. And he walks. He’s always walked. And always away. Hiding, walking, pretending. Why’s there no medicine for this — a happy pill that’ll take it all away? He wants to sleep, to sleep for years, to wake up in five in a different world. But he can barely sleep five hours a night. And the fear’s back, like a nasty animal nestled at the base of his neck, biting, scratching, whispering “failure”. Is there no redemption, no forgiveness, no last chance at happiness? His hindsight’s so perfect, crystal clear, but his steps stumble like those of a blind man, walking backwards.

Another chance, please, oh God, another chance at happiness, but the fear’s there again, whispering “never again,” and he fears she’s right.

Tanya

All is gone, all is gone, admit it, take flight.
I gagged in contradiction, tears blinding my sight.
My mind it was mangled, I ran into the night
Leaving all of loves ashes behind me.
The wind knocks my window, the room it is wet.
The words to say I’m sorry, I havent found yet.
I think of her often and hope whoever she’s met
Will be fully aware of how precious she is.
Ah, my friends from the prison, they ask unto me,
How good, how good does it feel to be free?
And I answer them most mysteriously,
Are birds free from the chains of the skyway?
–Bob Dylan. Ballad in Plain D

Falling Bird

Like a bird on the wire,
Like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free.
Like a worm on a hook,
Like a knight from some old fashioned book
I have saved all my ribbons for thee.
If I, if I have been unkind,
I hope that you can just let it go by.
If I, if I have been untrue
it’s just that I thought a lover had to be some kind of liar too.
Like a baby, stillborn,
Like a beast with his horn
I have torn everyone who reached out for me.
But I swear by this song
And by all that I have done wrong
I will make it all up to thee.
Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry no more. It’s over now, it’s over babe, don’t cry no more. I say don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry anymore. It’s over. It’s finished. It’s completed. It has been paid for.
Oh like a bird on the wire,
Like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free.

–Leonard Cohen. Bird on the Wire