None of it matters anyway.

I always say I would rather experience a brief moment of love than live without it at all. I tell myself this as if it was wisdom but I think it’s a lie. Because knowing what you could have had, standing so close to it you can almost touch it yet realizing you are either incapable or simply not good enough to keep it, is far more damaging, far more crushing, than losing everything outright. Loss can be mourned. Possibility lingers. At my age, with old traumas ruling my thoughts and making decisions in my place, I am tired of fighting myself. I want to forget who I’ve had to become to survive. I want to disappear into someone, even briefly, even imperfectly. So let’s pretend that we can. Let’s pretend we are here for that exact reason. Let’s pretend we’ve found each other in the quiet wreckage of our lives. Both out of luck, both worn thin by hope. For a moment we can rest our eyes. We can hold hands and listen to each other’s heartbeat, proof that something is still alive, still reaching. Let’s pretend this is real just long enough to remember that the purpose of life is to love and to be loved. I pray for those who have never known the feeling of drowning. Because to drown is to have felt the water and to have wanted air badly enough to know its worth.