Franz Kafka
A mature person does not fall in love, he or she rises in love. Only immature people fall; they stumble and fall down in love. Somehow they were managing and standing. Now they cannot manage and they cannot stand. They were always ready to fall on the ground and to creep. They don’t have the backbone, the spine; they don’t have the integrity to stand alone.
A mature person has the integrity to stand alone. And when a mature person gives love, he or she gives without any strings attached to it. When two mature persons are in love, one of the great paradoxes of life happens, one of the most beautiful phenomena: they are together and yet tremendously alone. They are together so much that they are almost one. Two mature persons in love help each other to become more free. There is no politics involved, no diplomacy, no effort to dominate. Only freedom and love."
Osho
your happiness is more important than mine
Late Night Lovers
She was walking North on Harbor when her phone vibrated. His name brightened the screen on her phone. She closed her eyes for a second to see if he had really contacted her. She didn’t expect anything; he hadn’t said anything for months. When she opened her eyes, his name was still there. When she saw his name, a sharp, pleasurable pain twisted and turned in her stomach. It crawled up her throat, and she gasped for a whiff of the cold air.
“Come over,” the message said, or really he said.
Her fingers were shaking trying to spell out some response, but her mind was fighting between whether she should coldly accept or warmly decline. She started to write “I lo-” but even the eight letters seemed too painful to write.
“Sure.” was spelled out instead.
✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴
It was 10:23 p.m. when she arrived at the house. Her friends could feel her uneasiness, so they whispered amongst themselves. But whispering is never effective when it’s silent all around. She heard everything they thought could, or would, happen. She bit her lips and pushed her thumbs down on her middle fingers until she felt a pop, trying to deny everything - trying not to give in so easily.
The great, lavish wooden door slowly opened, and there he was. As he stood among his friends, she stood among hers.
“Hi,” he said as he flashed that smile that she once cherished - that she still cherishes. She thought about his smile for a second because his face never truly expressed his mind. The light shined on his skin. His skin was always a rosy color around his eyes. The light highlighted his brown hair, but the brown varied in tone as he turned his head. He wasn’t too tall, but she’d have to stand on her tiptoes to see him eye to eye.
When she walked in, she thought that the best way to catch his attention was to ignore him. She strolled right by him. She put on his favorite perfume that she had. He just watched her walk by as her head dropped trying to laugh off her tears.
They brought them to the basement. Music blasted in her ears, but her heart pounded even louder. She moved away from him, and he respected her wish. But really, he just didn’t care enough to try to move towards her. While minutes passed, she tried to make a connection between everyone in the room. She tried to distract herself from his stare. He knew her too well. He knew he could have her in seconds if he tried, but the anticipation of it all is what he craved - what she craved.
As midnight approached, the distance between them decreased. They were sitting next to each other and didn’t say a single word. She could see his chapped lips - he always had chapped lips. Their friends moved around them. Time slowed when she was with him. Nothing needed to be said to have one of the greatest conversations they’ve ever had. His gulps of whatever liquor $30 dollars could buy him and his friends asked the questions for him, and the silent tears streaming down her face answered for her.
✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴
It was just the two of them now, alone. No one was watching them. She sat still in her chair. The lights were dimmed, covering her emotions. He then ran his fingers along her skin. This surge of emotions rushed through her. She jolted forward.
The words “I’m sorry” rushed out of his mouth under his breath. What are you sorry for? For not making an effort to talk to me until you wanted some? Or for making me feel wonderful? She thought to herself as she looked at him hopelessly.
“Don’t be. You make me feel electric.”
“Electric,” she repeated again as her tongue hit the tip of her teeth. She wanted to say “Kiss me”, but she bit her tongue to keep the six letters from giving him what he wanted.
She felt her stomach twisting and turning. This feeling of pain swirled in her stomach and stretched all the way to the back of her spine. The heartbreak traveled up her body and tickled her endlessly. Each vertebrae felt a different type of misery, and each vertebrae painted a different memory she had with him in her mind. As this sorrow explored her body, she remembered the time that they cuddled in the middle of the night, and the time that she wrote down 17 reasons why she loved him for his birthday.
He kept running his fingers along her skin.
✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴
Laughter started to fill the room again. The music became louder.
“We’re going,” her friends said.
She looked into his dark, dark eyes. She wanted to stay; she really did. But she knew what would have happened. As much as she wanted him, she got up and left him at that chair. She breathed him in. She thought that if she couldn’t have him, she’d at least have the smells and feelings to imagine him, to remember him, or so she could remember them.
✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴
“Okay, spill. What happened?” They pried.
Her vision was fixed on the taximeter. “Nothing.”
The leather seats of a yellow-cab comforted her. The taxi driver’s smoke fogged her memory. The shimmery past few hours flashed in front of her eyes. Each touch, each memory, each breath imprinted her in a different way. She was silent; silence reminded her of him, of them. The 1:00 am street lights blended together. In her mind, she was with him. The vibration pulled her back into the present - back to the unpleasant.
His name brightened the screen on her phone again. She hesitated, but she ran her finger across the screen to open the message.
“It was nice just looking at you again.”
STH
