The Train.
I didn’t even hear the boarding call. I wasn’t even at liberty to think until 10:57, that was when the bus was out of sight. I began to walk home in a carefree (careless?) fashion, having found at long last the love I had dreamed of. Before long my internal monologue was in full effect, promising, entreating, hoping, and romanticizing.
“When I call her tonight, I’ll profess my heart. (Yeah, right…)”
“Already I am overcome with a longing to see her, just to be with her (fear), just to spend a moment in her company (captivity), just to speak and hear an honest word exchanged between us (all lies).”
I paused in my ode to Angelica, but I was simply allowing my brain a breath.
“She’s so beautiful, and smart, and funny, and kind, and caring, sweet, and loving, and considerate, and honest, and level-headed, spontaneous, creative, and passionate, and well, just… ideal.”
That word bears consequences.
“I can’t believe this night. This is the night every wrong in my life has been made right. Every foul circumstance that I had cursed before this night has been turned into a blessed occasion if has led me here. Every error of my ways making me undeserving of this moment makes this only achievable through a perfect grace…”
The power that was ignored before, being so grotesquely evident in its unshielded form, had succeeded in poisoning the very roots of thought by masquerading as praise, and thus its venom began to flow. It is often only when we are made aware of our grievances that they begin to afflict us; I had been directed towards my own fallibility and thus my own penetrating introspective eye targeted myself. And once the eye is turned…
“She’s so good, but…”
Away from the focus; the end, the goal, the prize, the sum, the sought…
“I don’t deserve her…”
And onto the reflection; the means, the race, the efforts, the parts, the search…
“How could I ever hope to please her?”
The fight begins.
“Good question.”
I was divided. Torn apart, ripped asunder, by this self-destructive part of my own nature, which suddenly made his awesome presence known. It wasn’t I, the hopeful romantic who had lived this night, and fallen for this girl, who in any respect thought well of that question, it was he. He looked like me and spoke like me and thought like me. He waged war on my identity because he was a part of me. All of my doubts, my fears, my insecurities my nightmares and my sense of self amassed from the negative experiences of life were pitted against my hopes, my desires, my virtues, my dreams and that part of me composed of the kind and gentle past, both recalled and unremembered. And we were waging a war. It was surprisingly akin to a number of conversations I've shared with my best friend.
“It’s a horrible question.” said my self-esteem.
“Yet it must be answered, it shouldn’t be too difficult. Just satisfy this one curiosity and bask forever in the arms of the one you love; What do you have to offer her?”
“Love.”
Good answer. Way to go positive re-enforcement.
“The same love you had for your last crush? The same love that inspired four months of poems and songs only to fizzle out and die? The same love that was betrayed when you met Angelica? The same love that will hurt another when the next ‘true love’ comes along?”
Hope came forth…
“But there won’t be anyone else, there is no one better.”
“That’s exactly what you’ve said about every previous object of affection, what makes this one any different?”
Dreams respond.
“She’s perfect.”
“Then how unfitting that you should consider yourself worthy. You, who write because you can’t find words to say, think that you can communicate with her? You, who dream because you wouldn’t dare to live, think you can commit to a relationship? You, who are too afraid to confront your supposed true love honestly in fear that she will reject your pathetic wretched existence for one who can provide her with what she needs to be happy, think that you are even privileged to have spent this time with her? You have cursed her this night to have showed her this façade that will break her heart when she realizes your deceit!”
“No! You’re wrong”
It was a weak rebut no matter how passionately and vehemently my desire made it, and I was slipping further and deeper into a melancholy despondency as my bitter half circled around for the kill…
“Doesn’t Angelica deserve the best?”
“Yes.”
“Are you the best?”
“Perhaps… for her…”
I was reaching but found nothing to hold on to…
“No, I’m not.”
“Of course you’re not, you couldn’t possibly… and no, you’ll never be the best for anyone… you’re inadequate. Above all, you don’t deserve it.”
It’s like he read my mind.
“We share the same mind you idiot, I am a part of you.”
Oh yeah, I forgot… by that time I had forgotten everything of hope, love, peace, patience, understanding, all of my limited virtues had accomplished naught in retaliation to this devastating malady that resided in the recesses of my very own identity. This last realization was the deathblow; this very enemy of all that I cherished was in fact none other than myself. When this hit home I stopped. No movement, no thought, no feeling, would inhabit the broken vessel that stood at the corner of the bus terminal at 11:00. There was nothing left in me; all that fueled my will and intentions had been devoured by this animosity. The sky clouded over. There was nothing pathetic or fallible about the weather, it seemed that this deviation of my soul could be made into a manifest oppression that would go forth and consume the world if something would not stop it, and that is when the air chilled and the cloud fell. A dense penetrating discomfort settled upon me, it rendered me helpless and beat me into submission, driving me to spread this malcontent everywhere it sent me. It sent me home. No stops, just full steam ahead. A one way ticket, and I didn’t even get a window seat to enjoy the scenery.
With every step my brooding became less intense and more deep-rooted. If this kept going I would surely have become the sullen, depressed, enemy of happiness that was presently in control of my being. With my virtues cowering in a cramped hope, trying to pull themselves into some kind of opposition, my new identity sent me straight to a tortured sleep… but wouldn’t even allow me the comfort of my own bed. I spent the night on the couch. I’m glad my depressing self has its idiotic attributes too; nothing nourishes hope like dreams and I dreamt while I slept. In a futile effort to exact its supremacy over my will and body, my misanthropic self sent me a horrid dream that would become its own demise.
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