being human
Feb. 23rd, 2009 11:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
We meet people. And fall in love. And when we part, they leave marks for us to remember them by. Our lovers sculpt us. They define us. For better or worse. Like a pinball we slam into them and rebound in a different direction, propelled by the contact. And after the parting, we might be scarred. But stronger. Or more fragile or needy or angry or guilty. But never unchanged. Our lovers linger inside us like ghosts haunting the corridors and deserted rooms. Sometimes whispering. Sometimes screaming. Invisible, but always there. Waiting. George |
But true love leaves no traces
Date: 2009-02-25 06:01 am (UTC)As the mist leaves no scar
On the dark green hill
So my body leaves no scar
On you and never will
Through windows in the dark
The children come, the children go
Like arrows with no targets
Like shackles made of snow
True love leaves no traces
If you and I are one
It's lost in our embraces
Like stars against the sun
(from "True Love Leaves No Traces", Leonard Cohen)
not that i resemble in any way what i'm saying here, mind you
Date: 2009-02-25 01:21 pm (UTC)When I was a young man, and very well thought of
There was nought I could ask that the ladies denied.
I nibbled their hearts like a handful of raisins,
And I never spoke love, but I knew that I lied.
But I said to myself, "Ah, there's none of them knows
The secret I shelter, and savor, and save.
I wait for the one who can see through my seeming
And I'll know when I love by the way I behave".
The years they passed over like clouds in the heavens,
The ladies went by me like snow on the wind.
I charmed and I cheated, deceived and dissembled
And I sinned, and I sinned and I sinned and I sinned.
But I said to myself,"Ah, there's none of them knows
There's a part of me pure as the whisk of a wave.
My love may be late, but she'll find I have been faithful
And I'll know when I love by the way I behave".
At last came a lady, both knowing and tender
Who said "You are not at all what they take you to be".
I betrayed her before she had quite finished speaking,
And she swallowed cold poison, and jumped in the sea.
And I say to myself, when there's time for a word,
As I gracefully grow more debauched and depraved.
"Ah, love may be strong, but a habit is stronger
And I know how I loved by the way I behaved".
Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn