Thursday, April 21, 2011

Take this longing

When I meet people I look in their eyes and wonder what they see and how they see me. I wonder how much they're here with me and how much they're off with a memory. And then I wonder if I could love them.

Sometimes when I'm thin and tired and still treading recklessly and gratefully in gladness away from the storm of melancholy, I think about that imperceptible line between under and overwhelming. Does that feeling just belong to me and people like me? Am I so fragile that like a baby I could laugh and cry in the same minute? Perhaps the only difference is now that I'm older, I'd be ashamed to show such opposing feelings in uninterrupted succession... but feel them all the same.

I've been dreaming in strange vivid movie sequences lately and it makes me wonder how my emotions are hardwired to chosen programming. Also makes it harder to take myself seriously. I think of Joel sitting on the morning train in Eternal Sunshine on the Spotless Mind, fidgeting in his seat, eyes moving between the passing scenery and faces on the car... catching the eye of a woman and thinking, Why do I fall in love with every woman I see who shows me the least bit of attention? Those ridiculous feelings... I have those, and I also have those internal rebuttals, constantly.

I'm asking, why you? Why do you make me feel this way. I don't even know you. I couldn't possibly love you. And yet, I do.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I recommend blasting "Cecilia" by Paul Simon while hanging out the window of BART and bellowing like a godless banshee into the void of urban existentialism. That will cure all that ails your tormented soul.

a quiet citizen said...

That wasn't too much torment for you was it? I thought it was kind of doting. It was my anti-torment song of love gerry, didn't you hear that? :) And as for your recommendation, I would, I really would, but there aren't openable windows on BART. They don't allow that shit.