Ripples

True love can only be found and felt when what one wants and one needs can be found in one breath, one taste, one thought, one girl.
...............................................................Thomas Monarch



"You do love her, don't you?" she asked.
"I feel more than anything I ever have. Who knows if that is love?" he responded.
"I know."
"Yea. I guess you would."
"She doesn't love you back, does she?" she continued.
"She knows she should love me back. She needs it. I don't know if she wants it. Who knows if that is love?" he responded.
"I want your love."
"I don't know if you need it," he replied, much too quickly.
"It's a pity you waste all your love on her."
He looked at her and swallowed. "Pity is the reason I loved her in the first place."
The silence did not last. She would not let it sit comfortably. Rather than let it settle, as with water, to reflect the meaning of what had been sit, she disturbed its surface with a stone.. Her thoughts came like ripples, reglar but fading. She told him everything. The words she meant to say in the rain, the marks that had been scratched in her, the memories she would take back, the smells that she would keep with her, the boy that she wished he never was, the way it felt on weekend mornings, the things that had filled her but now left her empty with only these thoughts. He couldn't respond to her demonstration of emotion. Eventually the ripples ceased, and silence returned as the stone sank to the bottom.

Wish You Well

"What makes the desert beautiful," said the little prince, "is that it hides a well somewhere."
..............................."The Little Prince" Antoine de Saint Exupery

It was love at first taste. After eighteen years of wandering through asphalt, deserts, and rock desolation, he found it. The well. And he loved it at first sight. Small and stony, insignificant enough to be easily forgettable, significant enough to be easily noticed. And he loved it at first sound. He dropped a stone in and the sound of the splash it made upon entry and the sound of the thud when it reached the bottom were close enough together that the former echoed over the latter - the water was shallow. Unless one listened carefully, the thud as the stone came to rest at the bottom of the well was indiscernible. He liked this. The masking of the stone's sound as it reached the bottom gave the appearance the well was infinitely deep. And he loved it at first taste. The water from the well could simply be described as real. It excited him without him knowing why. It dominated his thoughts, his feelings. And he loved her at first touch. She touched him in the middle of one of his longer drinks from the well. The emotions that were pulled from the well he immediately transfered to this newcomer. He didn't know where she came from, or how she found him or the well, but he knew immediately that she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

All these feelings of life being real, of life being refreshing, he transfered to this girl. Thus, the boy called the shallow water in the well love. And he sat with the girl and shared the love with her and she shared it with him. Boy and girl, sitting by a well, sharing love, in the middle of desolation. Real. After eighteen years of wandering through asphalt, desert, and rock desolation, the boy was happy.

However, happiness cannot last alone on first sight, first sound, first taste, first touch. This disappointed the boy. He really wanted the shallow water they shared to be enough, but both the girl and the boy knew that the water level would need to be higher to sustain them. Together, they decided to mix experience with their love. Experience would be enough to raise the water level so they could be happy forever.

Together, the boy and girl went off to experience the asphalt, desert, and rock desolation. They saw things great and small mixed in the desolation. They saw things wondrous and beautiful, and horrifying and tragic. And every time they experienced something together, they scratched it into a rock and put the rock in the basket. And eventually their awe was all spent, and they returned to the well that held their small pool of love within. And together, they grabbed the basket and dumped all of their experience rocks into the well, so that they could raise the level of the water to a level where it could sustain their happiness forever.

The first few rocks raised the level of the water as hoped. Soon, the dust from the experience clouded the entrance to the well. The swirling clouds of dust paraded around the boy and girl. And inside the clouds danced the memories of the boy's and girl's experiences. The boy and girl were delighted to recollect on the grand things they had experienced. Delight turned to distress as the dust settled.

With the disappearance of the dust and memories, the boy and girl were horrified to find their water was gone. The level of rocks had risen above the level of water. The water still existed, but below the rocks. It could not be seen, heard, tasted, or touched. It was essentially gone. The boy and girl had so saturated their precious love with experience, that the experience soon outweighed the emotion.

The boy clawed at the rocks, tearing and clawing until his bloody hands fell limp through the cracks of the rocks into the water below. The girl, disgusted at the thought of blood reaching their love water, ran away. The boy tried to reach after her, but his hands were weighed down by tons of experience. The boy stumbled from the well into the asphalt, desert, and rock desolation.

When they found him, he was sprawled face down. Splattered to his side, written with the stumps of his hands, was scrawled a note.

Small and stony, insignificant enough to be easily forgettable, significant enough to be easily noticed.
Love and loss, insignificant enough to never be noticed, significant enough to never be forgotten.

Teapot Tale

She rolled out of bed her normal time - early enough that she didn't have to feel lazy about wasting that morning, but still late enough that she could waste the rest of the morning without feeling lazy. But on this particular morning, the timing of her awakening was not important. A much different awakening had occured in her. No matter how much her desire to do nothing that morning, her productivity could not be avoided. It was of the lazy sort, and thus the best sort, that required nothing more than simply existing. The fact is, something had changed during her peaceful lengthened sleep. At the moment she felt this, the thoughtful conflict did not arise in her between whether the world had changed or whether she had changed. Instead she simply felt. When the teapot whistled, she hesitated before pouring her waking cup of tea. Everything was different. Magic. As she tilted the spout she could feel it in the air, as heavy and permanent as the disappearing vapor and the echo of its heralding whistle. Magic. She suddenly wasn't sure of this new world and of this new her. This new day convinced her that she shouldn't be so sure what was in the teapot. Everything seemed uncertain, foreign, but balanced. Magic and change hung in the air - change far less substansial than nickels and quarters, but change that could be considered far heavier then monetary value. This made her feel like anything could fall from the tea spout. Something quaint - a bouqet of flowers, sprung from the spout with petals that would never melt and dew drops that turn to sweetener. Something evil - a scaled snake, slithering out of the spout, with a million writhing snakes hissing, pouring out behind it, leaving behind skins like used teabags. Gunsmoke, tears, kazoos, gold, bats, butterflies. Anything. The world was unfamiliar yet that in itself it felt familiar. Magic. At the moment she felt this, she wasn't sure how she had this new power to see things; whether it was her power over him that had shown her how to discover, or whether it was the power that he had over her - the thoughtful conflict did not arise her. What did arise in her was an acceptance. She's a little teapot and he floats away like steam.

Reintroduction

Anytime I write I am always writing with one person in mind. And nothing scares me more than that one person finding out that I am writing for them. But I like being scared. So whenever there is a person I care enough to write about, I find myself returning to this journal, posting, hoping the person I wrote the entry for reads it. But the hope ends there. I never want them to know it is an open letter to them. Because then I am scared what they will think. That they will be scared of how hard I feel, of what I feel, be it hate or love, fear or hope.

But no more looking back about how I have written. Only foward. From now on, I write no longer to one person. It is too hard to constantly change your target person, to adjust to what you want to write, to what people want to hear. From now on, I write for myself. These are the things I want to say. These are the things that the world has given me, that I have processed inside, and spit back out. You are going to be a part of them, because you are a part of the world. But I no longer want people to assume - "when he says love, is he talking about me?" - these are no longer assumptions I am going to care about. I'm not going to use names, I'm going to keep identities hidden, because they are hidden to me. I am no longer writing with one person in mind. I am combining everything that has been given to me. So if you want to assume that you are the person I am speaking to; that you are the one that won my heart, that inspired my words, that you are indeed the 'you' that i speak of; then go ahead and assume that. Because you aren't wrong. I am writing to the world. So when you see something I write that connects to you, be happy. Because you are part of the world.

Why this sudden change of pace? Why the loss of hidden meanings and attempts to impress and attract and signify? Because I've found that truth doesn't exist. The only thing that exists for me are stories. And I just want to write these stories down. They are stories about you. About me. About him. About her. About us. They are in the first person, the last person. They cross all ages, experiences, even genders. They contain pieces of everything and I can't even begin to try to understand where they come from. My life has become too complex.

Welcome reader. Before we continue, we must undergo a test. Remember, the goal from here on is for me to no longer write to 'one person', and for the people that formerly occupied that role as the 'one person' to accept their role as no longer being the focus of my stories. So this test is comprised of three words. The only story that I can think of today. I don't know if I said them, if I thought of them, if they were told to me, if I overheard them, if I discovered them, if I made them up, if I found them, if they are truth, or lies, or if they mean something or if they don't, who they are to, who they are from. I no longer have the patience or time to worry about these things any more. All I know is that they, in their entirety, make up the story I want to tell today. They are the chorus playing in my mind, the movie spinning in my eyes, the lines that are encircling my heart, they are the best place to begin. They are, as follows, with a little grammar adjustment and spell checking:

I love you.