If you gave me the hypothetical option of photographing anyone I wanted, I’d ask if it could be someone who had already passed away. If so, I’d choose a Byronic hero like Mikhail Lermontov, or another one of the 19th century Russian Romantics, or even Lord Byron himself.
If I could choose someone living though, I’d choose Tiana.
The art of longing’s over, and it’s never coming back.
—Leonard Cohen, Death of a Ladies’ Man
They ask me why I’m crying. I tell them the song is too good, not to cry.
They ask me why there’s a bounce in my step. I tell them I’m in love, and I don’t care.
They ask me if she’s taken. I tell them she is.
They ask me if she knows. I tell them it doesn’t matter as long as I feel this way, and I’m never letting go.
They ask me, “Why her?”.
I tell them she makes me happy without trying.
I’m not going to deny it anymore. It’s always been you. But I understand, you don’t need to explain, I get it. Work, our lives, we’re busy. You’re about to go off on a grand adventure. And I can see why you think that a relationship with me and that adventure are mutually exclusive but I just want to say my piece. Getting lost with each other could be the greatest adventure we’ve yet to embark on and I just want to say that if you want to get lost with me I’ll always be here perpetually lost without you.
I read his letters, some dated, some titled with expressions of forlorn hope. Familiar words that cut me to the bone.
They’re beautiful. I never knew he was capable of such poignancy, such emotion. It fills me with envy.
Sometimes I just want to be noticed. Not often, but sometimes late at night when I’m thinking about the “what-ifs” of the day. Being too obvious would be dangerous though and so I slink away, back to my cave to think, rather than do. Such a coward, I loathe myself. You’d say no, every rational scenario I’ve played out ends with that.
He’s trapped, perpetually lost in the thought of another. This time, I’m on the outside, looking in. It’s all new for him, and I can hear in his voice how much he detests it.
His angst is unbecoming. He’s not a writer, but he writes these letters, hoping the catharsis will save him. I’ve been here enough times to know that it’ll be alright, but that there’s also nothing I can do to help, so I resign myself to helplessness.
And now I’ll be pre-occupied and jealous for the rest of the weekend. Me, jealous and not trusting myself to speak, me. Not me, anymore. This love is like leprosy, pieces of myself are falling away. It’s ablative.
Yet his tone is so unfamiliar, so unlike him. Me, he writes, Not me, anymore. He doesn’t even believe it himself. The sanguine friend, reduced to an enfeebled state he wants desperately to cast aside. Even with the wisdom I’ve gained, it still surprises me how attraction, infatuation, love can make one so irrational.
In these letters he shares his feelings, wholly, as if to say, “Here is my heart. Please hold it gently”. The words would strip him bare if he spoke them to her, so he writes them where no one but me will read.
A prisoner, he lives in this cage, caught between the will and the risk of expressing to her how he feels.
Crashed at Aaron’s last night, and my god how beautiful the sky was at his place. His unblinded windows were filled with an intense gradient, and it really emphasized the stark nakedness of the trees that were barely peering above the horizon. It was the brightest night of the winter, and the room was filled with orange-pink light. I lay on his couch, wishing I could keep my eyes open for just another second longer before I succumbed to exhaustion.
I finally printed off my picture of the glasses on the sill and framed it, which is quite something considering the fact that I have barely any decorations in my room. I was lucky enough to have been given a nice metal frame as a Christmas gift a few years ago, but have not had a decent picture to put in it. Since I don’t have a career going yet, I try to keep a minimalistic amount of furniture until I can afford to invest in long term sets, and for now the picture rests on my coffee table. I wanted a physical manifestation of the image because of the poignancy it evokes in me.
Every time I look at it I can’t help but think of the morning sun seeping through the cracks of blue venetian blinds, of the flourish of green leaves outside the window. I think of lying on a swollen bed with my back to the wall, noticing the brightness of the sun fill the room, talking well past the break of day. I think of sleeping next to someone, holding her head, drawing on her face, seeing the early light bring out the sunflowers in her eyes. I remember how we’d go to sleep, placing our frames on the windowsill before succumbing to exhaustion.
Perhaps I’m so affected by this image, this bittersweet memory, because of how much I relish the act of sleeping next to someone. One of my favourite parts of a relationship is being able to hold someone before losing consciousness. I suppose it betrays a vulnerability, a certain unparalleled intimacy, and vulnerability is something that I’ve always been attracted to.
But how odd it is that this may mean so much to me, yet mean so little to another. That even someone sharing this experience with me may think of it in passing, as some ephemeral experience, not worth remembering.
What do we take with ourselves when we fall apart? Do we keep the memories or the emotions? Do we only take the good and leave the bad?
With this picture I try to take everything. I don’t want to hide from hurt, I don’t want to neglect any feelings. I choose to see the image as a beautiful thing, a frame in time when I felt something greater than most things I’ve felt in my life. I try to turn the pain into productivity and gain from my experience. I look at this picture and become affected by everything it means to me.
Even if it means nothing to anyone else.