i seek to know why i have been seeking you.
imaginary touch.
i could swear it was your hand i felt on my shoulder for it was warm and comforting the way your love always is but maybe i dreamed it all because you did not touch me at all unless your thought reached my body exactly where you would have touched me
work day.
i hear your voice in the hallway now i know you are not far away but even a very short distance feels excruciating; i feel so tense. like chewing gum i am glued to my seat longing for the moment when you and i meet and whilst i could, technically, walk up to you i do not have the courage, i do not dare to. lost in my daydreams about you, i look up, in a daze, from my notebook and standing by the door, who else do i see but you in the flesh, staring back at me. you've caught me off guard, appearing like that when i had been speaking to you, secretly in my heart. we say little, it's all you've got time for you wave good-bye, we smile once more the sight of you and our interaction have made my day, and soothed my apprehension.
tears.
I feel so much, that I just want to cry. Are these tears ones of extreme joy or explainable grief? I cannot tell. Maybe they are the same after all.
the shackles of social rules.
She watched him walk away. The further he went, the stronger the feeling of regret she felt. But something about this time was different. Although she had said very little – as had been the case almost always – she realised now it was not because she was shy. She had words to say; she could feel them at the base of her throat, she could hear them in her mind. Oh, how much did she have to, want to, say! No, the problem was not shyness, it was an uncertainty in the appropriateness of what she most desired to express. It was therefore safer never to say anything than to verbalise a thought that, although sprouting from a loving source, would be regarded as wrong. She was not shy; but she was shackled by unspoken social rules.
the reminder.
“I am in a happy marriage, you know.”
I wonder why you say this. It is as if you are reminding me of something I already knew, or even warning me that there is a boundary there I cannot, should not cross. Did you think – did you think for a moment I would ever intend to break apart your marriage? Do you believe me morally capable of doing such a thing? Or is it rather that your feelings for me are more powerful than you would like, and you are as a consequence dumping some of your responsibility onto me? I wonder what made you have to remind of a fact that had always been so obvious to me: no matter how close I desire us to be, it seems distance will always be necessary.
loud & quiet love.
People loved him, this she knew. She saw it in the way they went up to him, how they wanted and liked to speak to him: they always seemed excited about interacting with him. He mattered to them and they had no shame in admitting the fact. They wrote of their adoration on the pavement and they spoke of it out loud and they told him and they showed him and they made it so obvious, there could not be a chance of him not knowing of it.
She wondered how her love could be seen when it was competing against all these other loud ones, for hers was anything but. She could not speak to him for longer than a few minutes without stumbling over her words or becoming speechless. She was much too shy to smile at him, let alone meet his gaze. In fact she avoided him if she could, so afraid was she of him seeing on her otherwise mysterious face the truth and depth of her feelings, which she was sure revealed themselves uncontrollably should he and her ever be in close proximity.
Her love was of the quiet, soft-spoken, secret kind – but no less passionate than the others.
What never changes.
Some things in life don’t ever change; how much I think of you must be one of them.
where you are
How it matters to me to know if you are here, if you are where I am – because I like the idea of us being close, in the same space, breathing the same air, seeing the same world. Me close to you, you close to me – that sounds right, sounds like how it should be.
unseen, eternal.
For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
2 Corinthians 4:18
This love between you and me is invisible; one would need a magnifying glass to see any traces of it. It speaks not a word but lives on in silence, though loud in the mind and in the heart. It bears no gifts, and leaves the other always empty-handed, though fulfilled in the soul. It rarely embraces, hugs, or even touches, though makes the other feel held, loved and supported. Despite leaving behind no physical evidence of existing, it is there, somewhere, somehow, a constant throughout the passing time – unseen but eternal.
Words & Feelings 