Embracing a Fantasy

Embracing a Fantasy

I was born to humanity, conscious of the never-ending buzz of sorrow and adversity, that was to become my life. From my earliest childhood memory, sadness was wedged in my heart. My daydreams, but darkening nightmares that were decorated with blood and bruises; perfumed with stale liquor. I encountered irrepressible pain whose essence is inexpressible in words. Yet, my pain was muzzled; a mere whisper compared to the roar of my internal agony.

My suffering I kept secret. It was revealed in no shared writing, only that which could be read in the naked terror of a child’s eyes. Neither was evidence of the pain which bore itself into my heart like a parasite, comforted with touch. My hunger for love was crushed by bitter reality; I was unlovable, therefore, physical tenderness would remain an unfathomable abnormal phenomenon.

Until you, the torment, which marred my life, had never been breathed into a mortal lobe. A few attempts were made. My mouth would carefully form the words, but the tone was inaudible to the human ear. The world was deaf; it turned away pretending not to hear the abuse it refused to see. I determined I was ineffective in the use of language. I would never be heard. I learned to reject hope, or rather the dream of it. I would never be valued. In my tortured mind, compassion was but a fleeting apparition; a phantom who refused to materialize; imprisoning my soul in an artic tomb. I endeavored to proscribe from my mind any caustic remembrances. (It is difficult to absorb such mortal horror and not be left in a delirious inhuman state of mind.)

Though these occurrences left visible scars, they decimated the peace of my mind, starved my soul, and paralyzed my heart. Even in sleep, my wounds bled drop by drop. Drained and weakened from wrestling against so many obstacles; I learned to desire nothing; to feel little. Fatigue numbed my anguish, but painted a soothing picture of death. To live was more disheartening than to die. Despair descended like a heavy burial shroud around me. I had already given up everything I believed in. Why endure the silent, stealthful, and steady killer of the human spirit for even one more day? Hope could not serve as a tourniquet for my pain; it slipped through my heart as through a sieve. I knew only how to suffer, accept adversity, disappoint, and stagger from defeat to defeat. My spirit oppressed, it did not give rise to rebellion but repentantly submitted to defeat. Aching for love and damaged beyond repair; hope was surrendered in order to alleviate the severity of my suffering.

In doing so, I now believe there is no one who can do me harm; unless they attempt to do good. I have armored myself against the cruelties of this world but did not expect good to fall upon me. My oversight has left me, yet again, susceptible to hurt. The compassion you have so munificently granted me enfolds my whole being, weakening my defenses. My walls, once tempered steel, have become flimsy scraps of paper which float away with but a whisper of your voice. Only in dreams have people wasted their kindness on me as you have. The glacier known as my heart melts at a mere glance into your eyes. With the simple touch of your hand, you satisfy my deepest hunger, nourishing my famished soul.

Thus, I am terrified. Never have I given someone so much ammunition with which to wound me. I fear I am embracing a fantasy, a dream from which I will awake and recognize the one thing hauntingly faithful to me – the relentless denial of anything amicable and benevolent in my life. I am apprehensive, but my confidence in you causes me to mistrust my own doubts. Therein lies the inevitability of my emotional ruin – I have dedicated myself to the vision. I have broken my own commandments for I have dared to hope, to dream, to trust.