Imaginary entry from the diary of heartbreak:
There was a time when I thought the world was a decent place, filled with flowers that, at least every once in a while, burst into bloom.
But what suffering in the soul to learn I was wrong! The cinders are combusting, the soot is falling from the rooftop onto the steps of my front door. What a lamentable time to be alive.
First, the world gives you someone to love. Puts him right in front of you, like an invitation to dine at the banquet—a plea to dance at the ball. He is no ordinary fellow, either—but rather a beautiful boy with a light in his eyes and a song in his heart. How could you help but to fall in love? There is no shame in setting flame to such an incandescent soul.
Then, once the deed is done—the seal of love melted, stamped, and permanently affixed—there can be no turning back. “About-face! Retreat!” Such cries are indecipherable to a person already set on plunging head-long into the alley of love. And what will your recompense be? A rapture no ordinary words can describe—for the thought of the beloved consumes your being with an intensity of longing and delight that only the round-eyed mystics, all but blinded in their contemplation of God, could ever manage to pronounce into existence.
So your find yourself thus, walking distractedly up and down the street with a heart full of devotion and a soul dying of love. Perhaps you find the boldness to scratch out your feelings (and yet, they are more than feelings; they are deliberations of the soul) on a half-sheet of paper, then fold up the letter with care and send it by way of the wind. Or maybe the craze of your inner turmoil drives you to seek out the beloved face to face, and you let your words (insufficient as they are) spill forth in an eddy of desire—seeking, all the while, to communicate the essence of a truth which seems imperative to understand and to speak clearly into the open air. And for a moment, there is peace.
Yes, all this—because you’re in love. Impossibly in love. Stricken with the disease of an unobstructed but overfull heart: who knew such vigor could herald such pain?
For of course, the last thing which occurs—the last thing I can bear to describe—is the plummeting of stomach and the twisting of chest to learn your beloved has been taken away. The world, being the ironic creature it is, strips you to the bone—you are shivering in such cold—and reminds you that, after all, the beloved was never in fact yours: he belongs to no one and to nothing, and certainly not to you. The dull thud of recognition weighs you down like a rock; you are a sinking thing at the bottom of a cloudy pond. Your sadness sticks in your throat and renders you mute. Is it possible that even the inexpressible groanings of the Spirit escape you? To love without condition, without hope of return, was a noble goal, a beautiful aim. And yet, at the bottom of your pond, what good can you do? There is no one to hear the thrumming of your heart, no one to read the poems you wrote from your bed. “Thank you, Lord, for granting me such an impossible love. What a joy it’s been. May you delight in watching the breaking of my heart all over again. Amen. Amen. Amen.”