Within The Silence

this is about me. this is about me and how i feel. about me and how i feel right here, right now. this is not about anyone else but me and how i feel. and this is also about me and how i love. this is not about who i love, because it really doesn't matter who, as long as i do. because this is just about me. and this is about how i feel right here, right now. which is love. and this is how i have loved. and how i do.

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i have loved like tidal waves and forest fires. like earthquakes shaking the foundations of the earth and armies of black angels raining down like comets from the night sky. i have loved like waking up in mornings drenched in the sweat of nightmares and like falling to sleep in evenings huddled in despair. i have loved like oblivion, like the stuff god used to create the universe with. like insanity. like madness shaped and molded like clay to be given form like monuments of the Endless in Destiny's garden.

yes, i have loved with passion, without reason, with such blinding speed that it takes me but a flicker, a nanosecond to do something, regret it, and do it again without recurse or remorse. i have loved like bleeding on a white parchment, or crying silently in front of a crucifix.

i have loved different kinds of loves. kinds which one -- who was born in a hospital, went to a school and graduated, worked for a living, had a family, and died with a smile on one's face -- wouldn't even begin to understand. the kinds which have not been felt, but poets and artists have so longingly desired and written about, or sang about or painted about but they still wouldn't even have been able to perceive it perched on their necks like pendants on a chain. the kinds of love which do not begin with a smile or a sigh or a wistful look or even a gust of wind lost in its wanderings. the kinds which do not end with a good-bye or a tear or a period or a lightning separating the heavens in hemispheres and/or quadrants. different kinds of love.

but not one, never one such as this. where it is infinitely more silent than the stars glimmering in a windless night sky. where it is endlessly more patient than Death waiting for the universe to close its curtains. where it is eternally burning like the quiet glow in Desire's heart. never one as fierce as this calm i am in. right here. right now.

this calm. eerie. silent. subtle. i will be honest and say that i am afraid of this calm. that something old and ancient in me tugs at my heart. something persistent. something i am still not able to speak of, but still continue feeling, for good or otherwise.

this calm, this peace, this freedom that i have so recently acquainted myself with and have become so close with in such a short time compels me to protect it. this fragile thing which has alighted on my chest has spoken to me has made me its defender.

people have died for peace, for freedom. will i be able to do the same? will what i am feeling right here, right now, in my room, in this second be worth dying for?

i close my eyes and think. i close my eyes and think of the different kinds of love which have embedded themselves in me and etched their markings on my soul with the bleeding pulp of my heart for ink. i close my eyes and think -- no -- feel the rush i have felt, the madness i have endured, and now, the calm i am settled in. i close my eyes and felt these for a few moments minus eternity. and then i opened them again.

so it was that i closed my eyes and felt. so intense that if i had a sword, i would have drawn it from its sheath, pointed it to the skies, exhaled, and driven it to the ground. as above, so below, i shall protect this calm. this freedom. this love.

which is what i am feeling right here, right now, and from here on forth.