I don't remember her
This whole piece is cope.
Tonight I sat across the road from your house and stared at your front door.1 The hall light was on; your room was dark. Now home, screaming silently—I can’t believe you’re cold. Before this I've never cared about the past, never really looked at photographs. Prior my experience of the past has been characterised by an aesthetic indifference; now I am infinitely interested. It is awful.
Once was you were warm, in which case why would I ever care what had been; instead I could have you. You were a wellspring of pure water amidst so much mud. You were a miracle. I am sorry to other people—but let's be honest.
This concern with the past is horrible and its particular nature stems, I think, from the fact that I can’t really remember you. I stare dumb at photographs and feel an awful hole in my heart. There is nothing there. We spent so long together, yet now there are only cold facts strewn across a barren landscape. I cannot remember your face. I can only trace your tracks through time, though never will they come alive—or I sit instead and wish I had spent more time with you.
Once was I thought my love of you insane, regretted the disarray which my pathetic passion caused—once I thought all this but a silly aspect of my youth. Now I understand it as absolutely necessary, entirely justified; now my only regret is not seeing more of you since. Yet even then, whenever we met, always I loved you.2
We drifted apart; it seemed natural, and we saw each other over the years. I have come to a place where I am happy, or happy enough; and you are dead. I know that preventing this was not my task, but I cannot help feeling a failure for being unable to save you. I wanted so much to understand and help your pain. I never felt I made it in.
Of course, the individual themselves must deal with their own demons, all others can do is leave an opening for love as it may arise; always it is inner work. Still I wanted to save you, would drive you to therapy every week. I remember sitting outside in my car, waiting while listening to music; often my phone would overheat in the sun.
I remember fleeing a party because I saw you with your new boyfriend, and I thought: I am horrible for preventing this by my pathetic passion. Of course, he would end up hurting you and controlling your life. I loved you, at least; as even if I wanted to possess you, I did not want to change you—I only ever wanted to watch you dance.
My only solace is that I will see you dance again; that all that has been will once more. How can you ever claim to love a person if you would not wish it all over again? I would wish all the worst of history if only a for a moment with you—and I will have my wish. There is an eternal return; that is all that matters:
Unveil, O Thou who givest sustenance to the Universe, from whom all proceed, to whom all must return, that face of the True Sun now hidden by a vase of golden light, that we may see the truth and do our whole duty on our journey to thy sacred seat.
This piece has sat in my drafts a while now, not knowing what to do with it.
You said a week or so back that you thought I must hate you. I could never have. I always loved you, could never have otherwise. I was bonded to you by the intensity of it all; it was either love or hate, their was no escaping the intensity. I suppose it natural you thought it hate, if it was not love; but still I loved you. One cannot avoid this, even if you must be apart. There is some dark magic in sex and perhaps by this I was bound to you forever. I will not pretend it meant nothing, as is fashionable today. Maybe others do not act out its intensity, thereby suppress bonding or avoid it; myself, I enacted it. Those years, of what little I know, were intense beyond anything since. I lived; and it was so because of you. All that I am now is because of you, as much our time together as our interactions since—how could I not still love you?