LinkBack URL
About LinkBacks
This is something that I wrote originally for a college english composition class, with the intention of it being an event (in personal narrative) of something that was substantial to us. I decided to write about a lost love, one that haunted me for months after and it was only within the past few months that I was able to put it behind me. I'm not always comfortable writing intensely personal opinions and committing them to paper, mostly because I'm always unsure how I feel, but this paper felt right... it also earned me an A- even though the instructor told me he wasn't really sure what was going on, oh well, that made two of us...
The Art of Uncaring
“You will get the most attention from those who hate you. No friend, no admirer, and no partner will flatter you with as much curiosity.” - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Josh stood unfettered and immaculate, leaned up against a granite column of Boston’s Quincy Market. He was poised, flanked by a statuesque beauty. I noticed his toothy smirk and mischievous milk chocolate tinged eyes as they surveyed the crowd for his next spoil.
From a distance both too close and too far, I stood entranced, able to observe the whites of his eyes, still in my full-blooded conviction, the dance of my veneration for him. I’d damned the light and damned the dark, never to be forewarned of the plight for this one, what would subsequently be embodied within me. The sky slowly turned a shade of amber from azure as the restraints of time spun off the axis of reality, minutes and hours held no further bearing in my entranced mind.
The question of my campaign into the mind’s eye* of a textbook narcissist like him was beyond my recall, perhaps even beyond by free will. Certainly beyond my care of remembrance. I’m only reminiscent of the five foot six menace with his choppy and layered jet-black hair so deep a hue as his cavernous heart, a prize I wanted without question.
The first meet of our irides** was cold, frozen – sharp even. The uncomfortable notion of being seen, noticed, or even regarded at all set in. To further the next bout of suspense it now became certain that I’d crept into the sept of Fontaine***, and appeared from a transcending voice unable to clench free from that point on.
When it came time to walk and talk - I did, finding strength I would have assumed routed abroad by now. I brought myself up to occupy the coveted vacant space in front of my newest item of desire and contempt, bringing three idle breaths to fruition, using a generally overactive imagination to preemptively allow possession and attachment to this player of games – the one who would be determined to play the role of my puppeteer later in lastingness.
The words would flow all too well, one after another my thick loquacious lips flowed out niceties into the perky ears of my new companion, and right back through his designs came deception. Never more was there a ruse that I wanted so fervently to accept, so that I did, falling captor to his scheme with seemingly little care other then to assert through enough to hear the next two words in a conversation of facades.
I knew him once and he knew me, the transcending masks ascended from our flawed faces that we go to such odd lengths to veil from our surroundings. Now Josh is reduced to my narcotic addiction, he is what I wake up for, he is what I gasp for, and he is what exists inside my head – in more then one way the physical embodiment of my cognition. Every passing day I continue without the embrace of my beloved adversary is a day that I part ways with a little piece of myself, forever to be attached on a gilded string to his lost understanding.
But even with him, when I am allotted a slot of his precious time, we share a space in existence, in what seems like seconds. But no light is ever let in the space; a profound example of the depravity of all wants and needs of humanity. No, for this candid sanctum isn’t designed for creature comforts but only to appease a probable mutual dependency of honest imperfections.
Carefree and childish, dripping self-indulgent confidence, and with the unsurpassable captivation of a Siren. This is how he is caricatured in my mind. With the changing seasons and the fluctuation of emotion, both of our actualities change in synchronicity, playing out in a way that I could only find conflicted feelings in. On one end our constant war of wills keeps us connected, which I strive for, but on the other end of the dichotomy we only march our intent around to lie and trick the other into a selfish game from both fronts.
I find refuge in my ideas and my words; I guess they’re all I have. Despite the fact that a day never goes by that isn’t saturated with thoughts of him across the spectrum; I find myself reeling for answers and the ability to surpass his clutches, always futile. How do we do this to one another, use eyes as weapons, and words as soothsay?
Are we a naturally hostile being, and are humans truly animals? The infect of communication becomes like a life cycle of it’s own, and now our world offers more to spread. Immediate connection, immediate control, total domination. Welcome to this world, welcome to it’s inhibition, and bid fair to it’s rules that you’re bound to now and forever. Should we become captive to the penitentiary, I know now, something for sure. That so long as you are for one as I cared for him, you will always be, a prisoner, be it in your own mind or in the clutch of the captivator.
In the end I cooed on an empty grove, an evoked place of comfort from of my own determination, leaned out my hand to pick at a twisting vine, smiled at my good fortune, and learned the art of uncaring.
*imagination
**plural for iris
***Josh's surname; Josh Fontaine
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks