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i often wonder if i was just the last to find out, or the only fool who didn't already know..

i've spent most of this past summer in and out of the hospital wondering if i'm going to die.  i learned that there is no mass in my brain that will kill me, or any neurological disease eating away at it.  to my not so unexpected surprise, i learned instead that it is mostly my thoughts that have been debilitating me and causing parts of my brain to shut down.  for some reason, this strikes me as much more scary than a tumor.  philosophers are born, not made; and for me, it seems i have a self-reflexive defect--my very function in life is what makes life for me so...dysfunctional.

so what's been on my mind these days..  what has kept me so occupied away from my xangas. - a word, a concept, a most instrinsic part to meaning in life---love.

i've spent most of the recent months hopping from cafe to cafe, sitting before my laptop and espresso, leaning back in the chair, staring out the window, thinking, pondering, and writing about love.  this makes my life as a philosopher a bit of a dream come true.  i get to think and write about the things that most move me, and get paid just enough to cover my rent and keep the espressos coming in the cafes that have become my only true home.

i've finally 'finished' the damn paper, a task that took much more longer that i expected.  perhaps it's because i spent most of my thoughts on love wondering about what the fuck went wrong this past year.  or perhaps it's because a paper on love can never be complete, can never be something with a final page..

what have i learned..what have my reflections on love from the eyes of a fool taught me..?  not much..not much.  though i did learn a bit about myself.

in the guise of love, we tell and accept lies in hopes to stumble upon something true.  a desparate path to true love..but if you've ever been in the grips of a possible love, i'm sure you know what i mean.

i know what it's like for two strangers to become strangers no longer, to suddenly be two souls entwined.  but i cannot tell you how it's happened.  i've experienced a love turn to poisen, and at once the antidote long withheld.  i believe that someone can tell another that she loves him with her eyes better than she can with words.  i know what it's like to instantly sink softly into a voice, and to find long familiar voices anything but home.  i've once started a conversation just after the sun had set and found myself sad to find it come to an end even after the same sun had begun to rise.  i know the pain of baring my soul, only to feel the person blink and then turn away..  i know how it feels when hugs are even better than sex, a kiss, 'one to build a dream on.'  but i couldn't tell you the last time i've received a hug that told me i am loved.

everyday i sit at the parks and cafes in the fog and romance of san francisco; i see a hand at the bottom of another's back, a forehead resting on another's cheek, a laugh and smile that says i love being with you, a gaze that never tires...love, in san francisco, everyday, but only observing, never partaking, love, at a view from nowhere..

sometimes in pursuit of love one does completely silly things, like taking ridiculously silly pictures instead of being on time to meet your friends..

[image removed]

maybe i wasn't the last to find out, but rather the last to be deceived.  the only one to believe in what was possible, of what was true...and now out of fatigue acquience to the lies we all tell each other.  the advice of friends, the counsel of parents, sometimes they are no better than lies.  because sometimes a particular love, what makes it magic, what makes it all worth it, can only be seen from the eyes of the beholders..

i've learned that with love there are absolutely no guarantees than that you will be affected..

"trying to figure out where the hell i went wrong, being affected.." -mariah

"Forgotten Matches"

"..how about a half a glass?" she returns to me and asks.  already well lit, i know another would take me over.  but fuck it.  i muster a slight smile, and she pops the bottle open again.  her cajolery walked a thin line between being annoyingly pushy and being so-not-funnie.  but as many fine bartenders are apt to do, she walked that line true---a subtle, genuine concern, with just the right amount of distance.  would she pour a glass half-empty, or one half-full...that stupid fucking question again.  but this time the problem will not be of perspective, for the "half a glass" she actually poured full.

full of what, the question becomes.

all night at the bar i'd been struggling to keep the candle in front of me lit.  and though i had several matches left, i eventually acquiesced, i let go and let it be.  why burn matches when i have so little left, when it's not going to yield light that will stay with me.  ..i'm one who loves the warmth of a light, who pines for its constant company.  but this candle, time and time again, would constantly take back its light and refuse me.  just when i am to settle in the comfort of its warmth, it leaves me.  that's the nature of candles, i suppose, its light is never everlasting.  but this candle, on this night, in this life, was one i needed lit forever.  but moments were all it would offer me.

i struggle, it's obvious.  i'm drowning, the end is near.  people will help me, but no one will save me.  because in the end there's always a push.  it may be just one, it may be many.  but it seems that in my life no matter how perfect something may be there is always that one-push-too-many.  it maybe the slightest of nudges, an unintentional graze, an accident in the heat of the moment.  but it's all the same when you're already backed to the edge, your feet half over the ledge.  i found something perfect, but it would not have me, and the pushes became too many.  i find myself falling now, who knew how close i was at the edge.  i knew...i knew how close...but no one would stop to hear me.  and the longer i fall..the more frightened i become, with nothing to hold onto.  the inevitable impact awaits me, no one will catch me, there is no soft landing for this kind of thing.

i sit in the dark now.  i feel lonely, i am lonely.  i feel alone, i am alone.  i feel around me, for something to comfort me, for something to fill me inside.  sometimes i crawl, and i search with slow hands.  other times my hands grope hopelessly in frenzy.  however they search, whereever my feet take me, my tired hands are now blackening.  they search in the dark, sometimes under a faint light, only to find scattered burnt matches.  i have a couple of matches left in my pocket.  and in moments when the darkness is too cold to bare...i will light one and let it burn for the few seconds it offers, until the warmth again leaves me, until it leaves my blackening fingers charred.  one day, when i'm down to my last match, and am warmed for the last time, i know what i'll then become.  i will lay down amongst the remains, as a forgotten burnt match, those worn hands of mine tucked snug between my thighs, never to search again...