Do you ever just come to the realization that life isn't going the way you always dreamed it would? You know when life has been bleak for a while and you're plodding along and then you think to yourself, "Wow, I really thought things would be better by now"? But of course they aren't.
And you find that the relationships you're in are really pretty shallow and meaningless and you long for people who really understand who you are and actually want to know you. Like you want discuss Hawthorne, and Poe, and Dickens, and what exactly the Puritans believed about God, but you find yourself reading badly written romance novels because at least portray this impossibly beautiful dream of two lovers who wholly and completely understand each other. Like they can look into one another's eyes and see just what they're thinking and feeling.
And you want to know if the people around you believe in an afterlife, and if they're afraid of death, because death seems to come before your eyes on a daily basis and you wonder if death concerns anyone else around you, or if anyone else dwells on its promising possibilities.
And you want to go to shows, and listen to opera, and wander around art museums. You want to sit in gardens, and drink tea, and roam through cities looking for interesting architectures and clues from the past. Not because you think it'll give you a "classy" image or whatever, but because you really just want to live and those are the things that start to stir your passion.
And you find that you want to discuss Plato and Descartes, and strain the Shannon through your fingers looking for celtic legends, but everyone's too busy cracking meaningless jokes, and often you join in because, really, you don't always know what else to do.
And while you want your poetry to shake people's hearts like the Raven, you find that everything tends to comes out as melodramatic whining, and really, what good is that?
And while you truly want to know if your friends have ever been in love, and if they have how it changed the way they think, and if the color of the sky looked different afterwards, you find yourself asking if the chicken in the cafeteria is decent today.
And you want to know why the person across from you keeps living, and if they think about what it would be like to be a piece of coral under the lapping sea, and if they ever thought about the life of children in eastern Europe, and if given a choice would they move to a nameless city and start anew.
And you want to travel the world and immerse yourself in the culture you've been on the edge of all of your life, but you find yourself talking about Sulfer, Louisiana, and what would happen if you married someone with your own name.
And you like to imagine that the stars are living, and that Casper and Pollux are play actors on the canvas of the heavenly sky, but those around you inform you that really they're only great balls of gas that are far to distant to ever learn to touch.
And when you tell your beau that you want more from your relationships, and that this careful dance we call courtship is far too stilted without heart-numbing conversations and delving into fiery passion. And he tells you that he's never had a friendship before where you actually talk about things. He's never had a relationship that pierces the surface of brave face, cackling laughter, and petty irritation. He says he doesn't really know how to talk about anything, that passion hasn't been a part of his interactions, and that he wants that but he doesn't know how to find it.
And you find yourself wondering if passion is teachable, or if it has to erupt from the depths of one's being. And if that's the case can you dig beneath the surface enough to prod those depths into movement? Or are we just stuck here, frozen. Forever frozen.
