Maybe I'll Start Praying.

A Story by Honeytwigs

A short monologue depicting the pain of unrequited love.

I’m not religious but sometimes I wonder if I could be. There’s no reason for me to look at you that way - no real reason to look at you like you’ve hung the stars, but in my mind; you have. I could count the constellations on your back for hours, could trace the crinkles around your eyes, run my finger down the bridge of your nose, and press my fingers to your lips. There’s no real reason for me to want to do those things, but I think you’re something formed from the waters of the Gods, ambrosia from the deepest depths of Mount Olympus; for that reason, I doubt my atheism.

I didn’t believe in perfection until I began knowing you. Artists of old would have scrambled to get a chance to paint your form, your face - those eyes. They would’ve squabbled, quarrelled and fought eachother to the death for the opportunity to have you be the subject of their craft - because I know I would. You make me want to spend my days studying you and painting you on canvas, for you to be my muse that I’d write ballads about and sing from the rooftops. I would be honoured to spend eternity carving the curve of your spine or the softness of your hair into stone, as if to show those in years to come that perfection can exist, and I was lucky enough to witness it, to know you.

There’s no mortal explanation for your beauty, there can’t possibly be. Maybe that’s the cruelty in your existence. I can see you, touch you, want you, love you but I cannot have you. Not in the way that I so desire. It’s a cruel joke played upon me by the Gods, by those laughing from golden thrones, wearing robes of silk and drinking from rivers of wine. How could I not be tempted by somebody so perfect? How could I not be fooled into falling in love? For fallen I have. I’ve fallen so hard and so deep that they could not pull me out of the depths of Tartarus even if they tried; for that’s where I belong. To put a person on a pedestal of the divine is to push oneself down the stairs of the heavens, to tumble into oblivion, because no matter how hard you try, it’ll never work in your favour. Starving eagles peck at my insides and poisoned pomegranates turn my stomach with every beat of my lovesick heart. For it was divine machination that tricked me into falling for someone as perfect as you, there cannot be another reason. It is punishment for my lack of faith, my lack of care for those beyond you.

Maybe I should start praying. If I did, then maybe I’d have a chance to touch you and have all of you. To have your good days and bad days and everything in between. I want to know you when you’re angry and when you cry. I want to know you when you’re happy and when you're mine. I love your mind, your soul, your heart, your lungs and I want to breathe the air you breathe. I want to feel your breath on my skin and taste your lips on mine. I want to count those constellations on your back, trace the creases around your eyes, run my finger down the bridge of your nose and I want you to press your fingers to my lips. I want to carve your body into marble and paint your features on a temple wall. I want to go to war for your love, I want to crawl inside your skin and see the world through your eyes. I want to know how often you think of me, how often you dream of me. I want to know how much you love me and how much you hate me, if you even do at all. If I start praying will I have a chance to have you fully, in your entirety? Will I have a meal of stardust and sunlight? Because knowing you like this isn't enough for me. I am greed, lust and glutton; I want more, I need more. If I pray to the Gods is there a chance that you’ll love me like I love you? I would throw away everything I’ve ever believed and loved, for you. I would sacrifice my dignity and my sense of self for you, and it would rot me from the inside out. I would learn to believe in Gods that I did not if it meant that you might want me back.

The fruit of the Gods is not something mortals should ever obtain, should every consume; for when they do, they’re bound to their plane, forced to live as slaves to their wrath, their hatred for the human race.

Maybe I should start praying, but maybe it’s not worth everything I’d lose if I did.