10/13/2007 11:51:00 PM - She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not

When we were kids and growing up, we used to play a game, She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not. We'd get one of the neighbor's flowers, all in secret, naturally, and run to a safe location, out of sight, to play. We never used to have a person whom the She represented, but we'd play anyways, just to see if we were loved. Innocence, how beautiful!
We'd tear a petal off the flower, and the quick wind would collect it from our hands. We'd watch it fall to the earth, tumbling through a current of air without source or cessation, ending up on the dirt, or between blades of grass, out of sight.
She loves me.
We'd move on to the second petal, the same thing would happen, except the wind has suddenly changed course and the petal goes in a different direction. How appropriate; perhaps Nature's playing along?
She loves me not.
We'd go through the whole flower, petal after petal, hypnotically repeating, "she loves me, she loves me not, she loves me..." and the anticipation when only a few petals remained, what a thrilling feeling it was. Eventually, the second to last petal would be in its resting place, on a God-forsaken bit of garden, ready to to be trampled upon, yet having served its purpose...
She loves me not!
We'd look at the last petal on the flower admiringly, happy. She loves me. Thus the flower, looking lonely with a single petal, would find its rest with the rest of the petals. She loves me!That's a relief. Of course, we would never accept her not loving us; we'd redo the whole ceremony if we were unloved.


D'you know those days in which life's just a big game of 'she loves me, she loves me not?' When nothing in the world is meaningful, or worse, everything in the world is meaningless. D'you know when you feel like an orphan and a cripple, and when you're so tired but you can't sleep a moment; so hungry but you can't eat a bite?
I have had those days for quite some time now, in rapid yet eternally slow succession. I wake up, and it's there, I try to sleep and it's there; I am once more a slave to it, all my thoughts, my inward interactions and conversations are all focused on that one thing, on that one person, on the cure to the fix, to the aching, the swelling desire and longing, the desperate need for completion.
You reach for the one person, the cure; you want to love them, to feel their breath as they whisper into your ear, I love you. You yearn for the kiss that unites you two, forever and ever, amen. You imagine the tenderness, the passion, the purity. You imagine how everything precious in the world is encapsulated in such a moment, wrapped within a simple, closed-eyed gesture, where everything is blown away; where only union and love exist.
It's all a big game.
She loves me, she loves me not. It's a shame, really--and I think they should rethink the whole idea--but in real life, there are no redo's.

Adonis

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