Garden of Eden

Now, dear reader, I hope you shall forgive this writer his indulgence into his heart of hearts.

For writing, to me, is like therapy—and I sit down with one rich, unrelenting emotion, and I write and write until I clear the slate of my heart. Like the graceful athletes!—who leave it all on the field, I know I am done when the heart feels calm and prepared for the next. And the topic of today is heartbreak…

For, once I knew a woman—a girl, at the time, and I a boy—whom I adored dearly!

For a year, did we chat, friends sometimes, and did I imagine, other times slightly more—and so I asked her to the dance, and she agreed! Oh, how nervous I was—how I wondered and wondered what to do, and what to say.

And now, since I am no yarn-spinner—having prepared you for what happens, let us collapse this story before becomes heavy and emotional.

So, did we meet at the dance, and she asked for her ticket, and I gave it—to see her spend the night with her friends. Did she say a word to me!—perhaps, a short “thank you,” and I, who spent the night lonely and confused upon the bleachers.

Twelve years later, and I—still a slave to the memory. What is woman, this creature, who can cause a heart such boundless pain?

Thus, do I look upon her humbly. I am not a man?—but then, may I be a beast or a slave, something alive? Or, am I better off dead?

For, I have deep and strong feelings—and my politics incline conservative, rich and bloody as a cut of steak. Do I suppose I can help being right—and being superior?

Yet, even my friends and family, knowing perhaps not the inner workings of my heart, say that those of my kind—may be better off this planet. Oh, pathetic sin!—and so, I refrain from voting. What man should I be—to present my family with a tangled problem of reconciliation, to make sense of one who is simultaneously brother and son and dreaded enemy?

I am the soft, gentle nightmare of your peaceful dreams, who shall till the garden of humanity until it sprouts lush green soul, fertilized from the depths of my eternal spirit.

Oh, I wish you could see inside my soul! For, in my heart is a garden of Eden—and when I put the words onto paper, everything comes in contact with this most foul of worlds.