In Desire, Love and Expectations

Part I: Desire

I lay motionless in bed, staring at the ceiling with bloodshot eyes, crushed by the weight of empty loose-leaf paper scattered across my bedroom floor. Crushed by the weight of unread stacks of thrifted paperbacks lining the walls, the untouched pages gather dust as the deafening “tick, tock” rings through my ears. My fingers are crushed by the weight of the rusty strings that so desperately need to be changed on the guitar that stands across me.

I lay motionless in bed, my limbs weigh heavy on me as I feel the fear of what has yet to be written. I call myself a reader, and yet I can no longer seek pleasure in reading others’ words. I call myself a writer, and yet the ink seems to run dry the second I press the pen to the page. I call myself a guitarist, and yet the strings rust and go out of tune, and I can no longer be bothered to play wistful melodies. I lay comfortably confined under the duvet covers. Its threads, masterfully stitched together with the fear that my dreams will never turn into memories, but will forever be the empty loose-leaf paper scattered across my bedroom floor.

I lay motionless in bed, inebriated with the empty promises provided by my dreams, I let the intoxicating delusions of grandeur cradle me to sleep. In dreams, I have endless ink covering every empty line on the loose-leaf paper I can never seem to fill. In dreams, I fulfill my desire of endless praise for my completed prose that my everlasting ink supply can sustain. In dreams, I believe my words have innate value and are not under the constant microscope of maddening self-scrutiny. In dreams, there are no pages left unread, no oppressive ticking sounds serving as a pestering reminder of the ways I so carelessly waste time like it’s a tangible item I could ever get back. 

In dreams, I am not confined by the disorienting haze of melancholic exhaustion. In dreams, there is no uncertainty in the things I desire, because in dreams my desires shape my reality. The lines on my books’ pages are no longer gibberish. The strings lay fresh and new, perfectly in tune. In dreams I can finally live as life is meant to be: awake. 

But as I lay motionless in bed, I will stay nothing more than another piece of empty loose-leaf paper scattered across my bedroom floor.

Part II: Love

I remembered the summer heat when we first met. I felt the heat pierce me, and the sweat bound my clothes to my dewy skin. The heat rendered me delirious as I stumbled down the streets. Oh, what I would’ve given to feel a cool breeze. 

Like a gift from the gods above, you appeared before me. Your eyes were the color of the trees, and you held my hand. Sturdy, kind, and inviting, I carved out my heart and gave it all to you. You made a place for me, putting my heart safely inside. 

But the seasons change. And the cool air that carries you through the sun’s rays will not hesitate to drop you as the night falls. 

Now I feel the bitter sting of winter, cold and dark. The rain pours from the sky. It soaks my hair and binds my clothes to my bones. You are no longer there, for your branches decay, leaving my heart to the crows. Your leaves join the rain clouds, distant and far. But I feel your cowardice string me along as the rain hits my face. I lie in your bed watching the wood decay, and the soft, feathery pillows turn into hard leather cushions as I feel the funeral mourners with their umbrellas and admirations crowd around me instead of you. I lie a corpse filled with desires I can’t act on. As your love turns into obligation and empty promises, my heart turns into fodder for crows. My eyes are heavy with desperation as I stare up at the clouds, waiting for the sun to come once more.

As I yearn for the sun’s inevitable return, will I learn to be grateful for the warmth the gods have given me? Will I recklessly give my flames to another? Will I trade my coffin for a rock, trade the remnants of my heart for the remnants of my liver, and trade the crows for an eagle?

I wish I could tell myself that it will be different next time, that I will know better. But as the seasons change, the perpetual yearning for a cool breeze in the hot summer heat will leave me freezing in the harsh winter, and the perpetual yearning for fire in the cold winter air will leave me smothered and sticky, trapped in the summer heat.

Part III: Expectations 

“I wanted to be a journalist when I was your age,” my mother said to me sitting alone at her desk, cluttered with spreadsheets and baby bottles. Her bookshelf lay riddled with pregnancy and parenting books as she donated her old collection to the local Salvation Army. Baby pictures stand proudly at her cluttered desk, and wedding photos are framed around her office.

Her husband’s desk sits in the basement, off-limits to the children. His desk is cluttered with beer bottles, and his bookshelf lies riddled with war memoirs and neoliberalist essays. Slightly wrinkled posters of band members and architecture are taped to his walls. There are no picture frames on his desk, he couldn’t see the point in purchasing something so pointless. 

My grandmother never had an office, as she was always busy planning parties and community board meetings. Servants took care of her eight children as her husband demanded she spread her legs when he wanted her to, as a married woman should. Alone, she prayed the rosary every night, the Hail Marys’ and Our Fathers feeding her illusory moral purity as she turned a blind eye to her husband’s wandering eye, his overindulgence in drinking, and his angry temper. According to Our Father, she couldn’t deliver herself from evil if she was married to it.

I wonder how Mother Mary felt when God forced her to bear His son. Did she cry out for her mother as her hips weren’t wide enough, and her shoulders weren’t strong enough to bear the burden of motherhood? Did she cry as she tried so hard to be chaste, as she watched her peers die over his unclean hands? Mother Mary, the moral piety of womanhood — a virgin who gives birth. But what did Mother Mary want?

I spend day after day obsessing over myself, my wants, my needs, and my passions as men have done for the last thousands of years all because I can. Why should I succumb to the moon’s unforgiving coldness, gleaming with the fabricated glow of self-righteousness? And yet as I stare up at it, its glow hides the shackles on my mother’s bedside, framing pillows and blankets stitched with a pipe dream — unconditional love — in its place. 

With all of this supposed independence, it’s as if I am guided by my mother’s hands, and her mother’s hands, mechanically tearing pieces of my heart for others, as love for a woman is only conditional, riddled with Mother Mary’s moral expectations. I’m selfish for wanting to keep my bones, but time and time again it seems my only other option is everlasting loneliness. Alone, independent, every night I lie a skeleton, surrounded by the pungent smell of self-sacrifice and thanklessness as bones and rotting flesh of the women before me crowd around my own personal graveyard.

Header by Sophia Johnson