Distance and time
I like to think a lot of things that aren’t true, but this one is my current favorite.
——
I like to think that I have damaged you in a way that is imperceptible, and yet irreparable for that very reason.
I like to think that I have rendered you incomplete, that I have stolen a vestigial part of you that will forever escape notice from everyone except the thief himself.
I like to think that I have not been visibly improved by this theft, mainly because I have no idea what to do with it other than to carry it around with me everywhere I go like a two-bit souvenir, from an unforgettable yet disappointing vacation that took me just as far as I’d planned on going but never an inch further.
I like to think that I have subverted your possession of me by turning you into a caricature of yourself, amplifying your shrillest qualities and dampening the hazy melody of the sirens that had once drawn me in so faithfully, so anxiously.
I like to think that I have been fighting an undeclared war with you all this time, and that I have won this war not by force or diplomacy, but through a shrewd and atheistic sort of manipulation; through steath, subterfuge, and finally a silent pillaging of all the historic monuments that had once made you sacred enough to be pursued on the battlefield.
I always thought that I would win your beauty by conquering it.
I like to think that I have conquered your beauty by corrupting it.
——
And in that way, with those crumbling artifacts of the ancient you under the eyes of a watchful curator, you are mine and always will be; even as we necessarily grow further removed, even as it is you who is doing most of the growing and I who is being removed, surgically if need be, from the leisures and vanities which once surrounded me and affirmed me and brought comfort to my sleep and rule of law to my daydreams. You are mine and always will be.
In reality, though, I am not the one who has changed you. For once, I am not to blame here. I was merely a witness to these events, over which I had about as much control as I did over the events following the fall of the Berlin Wall, and maybe even less, because at least then I could change the channel if I didn’t like what I was seeing. But I couldn’t ignore you if I tried, and I have tried, and I still do. As they say, trying is the first step toward failure.
I was never yours, but you were always mine.
——
The only solutions that remain are distance and time.
