Look around you. Do you see?
This is life. Normal, everyday life.
Of course, we see things differently, you and I. We have different experiences and different backgrounds. We come from two different worlds and somehow, you and I have ended up here together, as in at the same time, and here we are, together, as in right here and right now.
I believe that this is how destiny works. Or perhaps this fate. Or maybe this is something cosmic, which is how I choose to see this, or how I choose to see us. I have to choose to see us this way.
Otherwise, life is nothing more than a tasteless series of random occasions and time as I know it is nothing more than a chain of empty portholes, which are moments that are nothing more than meaningless.
I have to believe in this because without this, there would be nothing. No zest. No lust. No reason for joy or passion.
No.
No thank you.
I need more.
I need to feel more. I need to dream big and believe that life has more to say than, “sorry, kid. I know you wanted to believe in something, but there is no Big Man in the sky or souls in the clouds.”
I have countless reasons to doubt this or us or anything in-between
But still, I choose to believe because I want to believe.
Wait, no.
I need to believe. I have to.
And this is fine. You can call me weak. Call me a child. You can call me anything you want but either way, I have to believe.
I just have to.
I need to believe that we live in something more than a lifeless world, absent of color, absent of desire or passion, and to be clear, I need to believe in the reasons why we meet or why people choose to go or stay. I have to believe that there is a reason why we exist.
I believe that there has to be a purpose behind all of this.
I believe. I really do.
I have to believe that life is more than sporadic occasions of victory and tragedy, and therefore, I refuse to allow myself to succumb to the idea that this means nothing—as if to say that fate is not real, and destiny has nothing to do with the reasons why you have come along, here or not, and crossed my path.
I will not allow myself to the joyless gravity and sad conclusion that life is merely happenstance, and otherwise, this thing that we have here? This thing between the two of us, or this place in my head, which has changed over the years (but then again, so gave we) and above all; this thing I have hurt for and longed for, wished for, and as far as this thing between us, which I have waited for, and as for the question of whether this is real or this thing of ours, which I have waited for, as in for all of my life, well?
I choose to believe in this.
I need to believe because then his would mean nothing and so would I.
Or should I say, so would we?
If there was no such thing as fate, then there would be no moments of say, a night beneath the stars or a moment together when the moon above is nothing short of beautiful.
If passion were not true, then I suppose the dreams of us in a place somewhere, far from where people live, would be just as untrue.
But I won’t believe that,
I want to go and be lost with the intention of being elsewhere, and if none of this we real, then what would it mean to be far from where people go?
What would it mean to be with you, somewhere, away from the rest of the world, just so i can have you all to myself.
I want this. Therefore, this is real.
Then again, this is you and therefore, and openly before the world, I admit to this; you are real. At least, to me.
You are my drug. You are my euphoric episode, like the sway of a candle past midnight or the feeling of your leg as it touches me when you lay close; this is more than a brand of heroin and more than any narcotic. There is no high like this.
Nothing like this can be created or destroyed.
This is real.
And do you know what?
I need this.
I need the dream. I need the feeling and the rush of you, or the way your smile appeals to my heart; and while I admit hiding or while I admit to the stonewall defense, or I admit to the gruff of my exterior; I am truthfully warm, exposed and vulnerable/
I am gentle, harmless, frightened and childlike, and yes—I can run and I can dream and I can scream at the top of my lungs.
In fact, I want to scream,
I want to shout, “I can’t believe she loves me,” in front of the entire world, and I would say it again, like say, loud and proud from a busy corner at some downtown spot where the crowd is thick.
Look!
Look everybody!
There she is.
I have no strength when it comes to you. I cannot resist, and nor do I want to. However, if there is no fate and if destiny was nothing other than a made up word, as if to be “just” another saying with no earth or substance behind it, or no depth, and with all of my heart; if there was nothing to this then I would have nothing as well. I would be nothing, as if it be no more alive than a lifeless, mindless body on life support, and kept alive by an alternative source, and thus, if none of this were true than I would not be alive at all.
And neither would you.
I need to believe.
Do you understand?
I have no choice because the day I stop believing is the same day that I choose to believe in despair over prosperity. And I want to be prosperous.
(with you)
Please. Hear me.
I need to go.
I need to get away.
I need to find someplace where the air is sweet, and the moon is full, and you?
You look more wonderful than anything I have ever seen before.
Nothing could out shine you. Not the shadows from the moon or the beams from the sun.
I need to go.
I want to be someplace which is absent from the daily static and away from where manmade things create manmade problems.
And should my dreams be nothing more than a thought or a useless idea, discharged in the mind, and elsewise—if this is nothing else than a childish dream and reality would prove differently, or if this were only a thought that came and went, as in gone, like a summer breeze, —and once more, if none of this were real or true, then yes, this would mean I have been drawn in by an illusion.
I was hypnotized again or entranced by the a dream that could take me up to a high so beautiful and sky-scraping, and yes, this would mean that I was drawn in, once more, by a high that was not true.
And more, this would mean that everything I believed in was a lie.
All of it. A lie.
This is why I need to believe.
This is why I refuse to let go or disappear.
I have dreams and hopes and wishes and aspirations.
I want to see and think and feel and therefore before the hour of my death (amen) I chose faith over the hopeless abandon.
I choose to believe that you are real.
You are my drug. You are the reason why I was built and created. You are the reason why I was chosen to be here at the same time as you, and so, this is the reason why I was intended to cross your path.
This is why I believe in the powers of fate and destiny because there has to be a reason why i have crossed you path before and once again.
The reasons why I came and went is clear to me.
You.
You are the reason why I refuse to give in or give way—and although I lay and sleep alone, I know that in my heart—I am keeping my beliefs alive and therefore, this is how I keep you alive.
This is how I keep us alive.
This is how I survive.
This is what feeds the ambition, the longing, and the desire “to be,” and with all of the above; this is how I worked through the withdrawals from the drug of all drugs—namely you.
I remember a man who I knew well enough to say that I knew him.
We were not friends; however, I saw this man as a man apart from his crowd.
He was not like the rest of his professional circle, nor was he anything like the people I knew in my previous or former life.
I say this because I believe we live and die far more than we realize. And while that part of my life is dead and gone; I remember this man at an occasion after the death of his wife.
He was pleasant but sad. He was alone. His other half was gone.
I saw a woman approach him and ask if he would like to dance.
He politely declined.
The woman asked him again.
And then he dropped the mask.
He explained, “My wife is gone.”
The last woman he danced with was his wife.
“I’m never going to dance with another woman again.”
I wonder if he held this so tightly because to him, this was how he kept her essence alive.
He never wanted to smell another woman on his clothing.
I cry as I type this to you. I admit that I am weak.
I am a shell, a hypocrite, and often a coward.
In part, this is sad.
In part this is beautiful to me.
In part, I understand and in part I both admire this man and I envy him to feel a love this strong.
Loss or no loss, this man loved the best woman in his world.
Nothing can compare to that
No one else could fill her place or take her spot.
I assume that this man had hopes to dance with her again.
Maybe in his dreams or maybe in the afterlife.
I don’t know.
We were not friends by any means.
But that man inspired me.
The display of his love inspired me during lifeless and loveless bouts.
This saw me through times where I swore that I would always be on the outside looking in.
But deep down, I still had hope.
I have seen couples, holding hands or laughing at the rest of the world.
I have seen couples together, and they are the kind that make the world sick>?
They make everyone sick because they have tuned everyone out.
No one else matters.
Their public affection is nonstop and to them—they couldn’t care less who watches, who sees, who cares or who doesn’t.
I love that,
One day, you are going to dance with me.
I have already chosen a song for this—
You might know it.
You might not.
Either way, Roberta Flack knows all about it.
And I swear that she sung it best
“Somebody, somewhere heard me cry
Somebody, somewhere sent you when I—
I needed you”
It isn’t easy to expose myself this way.
I’m supposed to be a man.
I’m supposed to be tough.
But I’m not tough.
I’m weak when I am not with you.
I’m someone who needs love and lives with the pain of ugly withdrawals —
that is, of course, whenever I am without you.
The Written Addiction 