The Weight of Love

When you put your head on my shoulder and closed your eyes, my vision became obscure. A veil of tears covered my eyes and I realized that I had begun to cry. My lips were sewn shut and I cried, I cried for I wanted to be the foundation upon which you built your love. I longed to bear all your troubles upon my back. And I sat, posture slouched, and caressed your jet black hair, and you sighed and smiled in the midst of your revery, and I cried, more, more, for I knew time would eventually seize your arms and take you away from me. You opened your eyes, suddenly. You looked at me and showed no pity, and you didn't ask why I had cried. You merely touched my tears, and I then began to scream aloud, begging time to cease its cruel pursuit and leave you be. And in the darkness of your eyes I saw the core of my own existence, and upon the twirls of your hair all the meanings of life danced in unified motions, and upon your lips words lingered, words unspoken, words that would mean the world to me, and when I kissed your lips Joyce and Woolf and Faulkner and Hemingway were all silenced, at once, and they turned into little dots upon the canvas of my mind, and in their stead your existence spread, slowly, over the surface of that canvas. You overtook them, overshadowed them, and in your kiss you said, silently, "it's okay if you don't know many words; it's okay if you get tongue tied when talking to girls; it's okay if you walk alongside Time instead of accepting its embrace; I am dear to you and you are dear to me, and with my bare hands I will untie the knot in your waned heart, and I will pour sugar on your self-inflicted wounds, and I will remain by your side so that you are not alone in resisting the tide of life."

You pulled away and tasted my tears. You put your finger on my pulse and tested its beating against the ticking of time, the ticking of seconds and all the infinite intervals in-between. Beyond the lake that laid before us like a splotch of blue ink upon the earth, I could see the first rays of sun climbing over the edge of buildings. You turned your head also and sighed, once again, and removed your finger from my pulse. The echo of your gentle sigh spoke of exhaustion and weariness -an  echo that remained in my ears, untouched, untroubled. And I knew that for the day I would become deaf to all other sounds. 

A minute later when sun had become surer of itself and you could stare into it no longer, your turned to me again, and the pale beams illuminated the right side of your face. The light played a trick upon your eyes also, and I now stared down two deep wells wherein love bloomed, for untroubled love blooms only in darkness and withers fast in the presence of light. Your lips parted and you spoke again, as you held my hands and traced the jagged edges of my fingernails. You stopped speaking and waited, expected, something, anything. 

But I spoke of nothing. 

My lips remained sealed and my eyes teary. Soon you became disappointed at my silence and left, and when you turned your back I memorized your gait and figure, the way you took your steps and moved your feet, sometimes dragging your left foot and other times planting them both into the ground like roots, as if you had grown out of the earth and were part of it, belonged to it. And I was out of time. I was born outside of time and space. I sat upon the bench with no desire to move or to accept the embrace of Time. On the lake I saw kayaks and in them people, all laughing and talking, some fishing and others gawking at the girls who walked by the lake in their short summer dresses. And I sat upon the bench and closed my eyes, and remembered the way your buttocks moved as you walked, and then I thought of you naked, of your hair that flowed past the nape of your neck, and when the sound of laughter and car horns were silenced beneath the echo of your sigh, I felt a tinge of pain in my bones, for the weight of your head had crushed my shoulder blades. 

"I'm sorry, my dear", I murmured, and fell finally into a deep revery.