Stockholm Syndrome

Many people exist; for some, that is all they do.  I am twenty-two in a few aspects, and a vast spectrum of ages in all others.  I have much to offer many people, and for someone, I will be "perfect," in that perfectly flawed way that makes love so unbelievably and wonderfully unpredictable.  I do possess some character flaws, and for those I will readily plead guilty.  I am over-emotional, a little paranoid, unmotivated by the onerous, and utterly uninterested in the uninteresting.  My eccentricity often robs me of others’ empathy, and my oddies often rob me of believability, respectability, and authenticity.  I do have some good things, though, I think.  I am sensitive to the emotions of others, I listen attentively, and I am generous to the point of foolishness.  I am intelligent and occasionally eloquent (though usually not in person), literate and occasionally humorous.  I am, of course, a combination of many things, and I regret NONE of them.

And I think, at some point, someone will want all of that and want me.  So.  I am done with this.  I gave all of myself to this, dedicated myself to this, never realizing that I was the only one who wanted it, never having known the rules to these childish games, not believing that I could be so…sad, confused, and resentful about this.  I’m moving on; I feel almost gone already, that lighthouse has faded to a nimbus in the mist, and this ship’s captain has vowed never to return to that harbor.  The stiped sails billow belligerantly with a newfound wind, and the smell of salt has drowned out the decayed remains of yesterday.

Patience.

Break-ups are always hard, and they seem to attack an already tenuous self-worth most tenaciously.  My life has become a susurrus cavern; every sound-effect whispers recriminations, exhortations, lamentations.  But I am better, now.  Older, wiser, and a little more cautious.

Not to say cautious love is the better love–no, not at all.  It’s callous and a half-measure that doesn’t deserve its own syllables.  No, I mean to say that caution when choosing who to love–who to envelop, and in turn let them envelop you–is the only way to ensure that my end result receives a heart that can appreciate without cynicism–a soft crimson crepe as opposed to angry agate.  A matter of finding someone in the same time and place, in every sense of both of those words.  So I write.  I play songs that remind me of my value as the future love of a wonderful person.  And I remind myself that, even alone, my worth is unassailable, and indeed, only vulnerable to attacks from within.

Patience.

It was classic Stockholm Syndrome, I think.  An unwillingness to accept the impossibility of the situation because of the repugnance of continued loneliness.  A warm body in bed.  A soft voice in the night.  Two toothbrushes atop the sink.  And I realize, now, the intrinsic folly of what I’d hoped to do.  I accept my behavior in its aftermath as the natural progression of a person growing perpetually.  I can barely fit in my bedroom, now, but still I’m growing.  Eventually, I fear, I may consume the world;)

I do not regret it, nor would I endeavor to change it.  Bygones have all gone by, the water under the bridge has tumbled down the waterfall, I buried the torch I used to bear.  I resolved myself to the prairie dust and the heart-teasing wait for the inevitable wildfire.  Let the landscape be the torch and I will commit myself to the flames.  Can I wait for that?  I check my impatience at the door, take off my shoes, and settle in for a dreamless slumber.  Even in the blackness, my unconscious promises vigilance.  It will grab her in the night.

Patience. 

Scuffed boots and a grimace,
Beating back the dawn what
It’s at its dimmest,
A split-shade away from black,
These amorous alleyways know
That I’m not coming back.  Never.
So take a long last look at my retreating back.

Asleep in bed and just barely dreaming
Of what might have been.
These nightmares take to seeming
As rotted cadavers teeming
With insects and pathogens,
Bottled angst and London gin.
This turned back will not turn around again.

I am a new man today.
Will the old one be missed?

You won’t ever find another like me.

And so I shake off a two-year hangover.  Spiders have inhabited vacant cobwebs; messes of twigs and leaves twitter with returning woodswallows, awakened bowerbirds, yawning brown bears.  I promise the planets a healthy return upon their celestial investment.  I vow to pay back the absent gods with cosmic interest.  I smile.  I breathe.  I sing.  I dance.  I scream.  I love.

Patience.