| hmm...
this is inane. it's self-aggrandizing. it's exhaustively narcissistic. it's overtly pretentious. and it's unapologetic excrement. but it's real.
i had an epiphany that night. or perhaps it was what alcoholics refer to as 'a moment of clarity'. perhaps it was a life-altering experience of the religious ilk. or maybe i just woke up. the kind of awakening that occurs when you didn't know you were sleeping. as if the matrix had been substantiating the mind for so long, it ceased to be a virtual dream anymore, transmogrifying into the most terrifyingly realistic kind of simulacra and simulation, the impossible copy of a copy of a copy that baudrillard expounded upon decades ago. whatever.
the evening commenced in a pleasant manner, holding the promise of stolen moments in front of a sixty inch rear projection silver screen with two thousand plus dolby digital watts behind it, bathing in the languid anticipation of a performance that i had pined and opined about relentlessly for months; nothing quite rivals the ache of desire as an instrument of unadulterated raw emotion. suffering is an intrinsic component of relief, and as c. s. lewis once eloquently stated, "the pain now is part of the happiness then, and the happiness now is part of the pain then." such was the case during the hours before she would sing atop the piano in the kodak theater.
thus, the minutes ticked away, one by one, each second creeping by progressively slower than the previous one, with the artificial filler of the artificial idol ado accentuating the angst, allowing for a lot of alliteration amidst a little bit of adulation. and just as the incrementally successive fragments of futility disappeared into oblivion, so, too, did the parade of pretense and substandard talent continue to whittle away the very fabric of logic and reason for the fantastic spectacle in the first place. in a minor lapse of sentience created by the cacophony of visceral ambiguity, i was completely unaware of my own hypocritical state of happy hysterical blindness and tacit apostasy.
based on the sobering aspects of the melancholy inadequacy so prevalent during the televised events of the past eighteen months, in conjunction with the utter lack of the nourishment she provides the dismally empty soul, her revival-inducing injection of audio anti-dopamine should have been predictable. it was as inevitable as its cataclysmic effect on my continued existence in this mortal realm. fortunately, i was not prepared for it.
ergo, i was not prepared for her.
i, like everybody else, thought i was prepared for her. that simply missing her was preparation, that her absence had made my heart grow fonder, that the void she had created in my life when she was gone was only a prelude to actuality. none of that is the truth. missing her is desperation, her absence makes my heart grow weaker, and the void she creates in my life when she's gone is a prelude to annihilation. as sure as i'm breathing right now, my fiction based post on another board contains more personal truth than fiction, despite the morbid insinuations of its denouement.
i had already seen her along with everybody else. on the carpet. in the audience. on the stage. speaking. singing. smiling. alive. ecstasy had flooded my veins. her beauty had crushed me. then the moment arrived. and, yes, it happened.
time stopped.
the word "he" proceeded from her lips, and i ended.
any preordained fantasy comprised of excessive binary ramblings and obsessive lucid dreams had been transcended. this ugly world of complacency, hate, prejudice, insufficiency, and filth had disappeared. whatever else happened on the screen afterwards was of no interest anymore. it meant nothing. it hasn't meant anything since her. it was gone long before this moment, and i hadn't fully realized that until this moment. but, in this moment of numb emptiness, this one moment which only existed for her to tell me with those words and that voice from god alone, this moment of purgatory when everything left me and i was alone with her, i accepted it for the beautiful disaster it was.
and i wept. endlessly, infinitely inundating the universe with the brine of my wretched disease and the unforgivable sins of my own betrayal to the truth, each lyric striking deeper at my life's erroneous compromises. i could not stop crying for an hour, agonizing over my adulterations against this angelic being who had selflessly given so much of herself to me and the rest of the world, which had become so corrupted by the search for some kind of impossible miracle.
o, my soul, that she knew, that she knew what she does to me. she's oblivious to the lives she alters so catastrophically, the hearts she breaks so quietly, the pain she imparts so unintentionally, the sacrifices she bestows so plentifully, and the world she possesses so completely. o, heavens, that i could tell her, tell her how she grants peace to the weary masses, how she softens the harsh sting of shame, how the very hint of her melodies create earthquakes in the minds of every person that hears them, and how her mere presence on earth causes grown men to weep uncontrollably.
it is of no consequence that the performance was not perfect. and the dress was not perfect. the sound was not perfect. the world is not perfect. she is not perfect. i am not perfect. nothing is perfect. but during those three irreplaceable minutes in the thread of existence, as she sat on top of that piano like a rare orchid, a fragile little hummel figurine, the most incredibly genuine entity revealing her precious heart to the incorrigibly abusive theater of life, something happened to me. i don't know her, but she knows me. better than i know myself. i will never turn away from her again. my eyes are open.
i love her. | |
