I remember love

Like a ghost from the past

It was beautiful

A long far away stare,

a plunge into the depth of a glance

It was so far,

Yet the yearning grew 
like a budding rose

So very close to the heart

I remember when it was forbidden

An elixir so intoxicatingly sweet

A moment too brief,

a moment that never dies

And then one day

I noticed its absence

Gone was the castle

And the knight in shining armor

Gone was the longing

Under the starry night

Tonight, without sensation

I walk stoically under the moonlit sky

Reminiscing how I once loved LOVE.

So far, yet so close

Here I am at your door.

And though far away you rest,

In another would unknown;

I see your face full of zest,

On your still tombstone.

You embody happiness,

The peacefulness that I need.

But I can’t join you yet,

Not until I’m done with my deeds.

I can only be thankful you’re here,

Every time that I come..

And that you will be waiting here,

When it is time for me to be gone.

“The Unbearable Lightness of Being” It is the title of a novel by Milan Kundera, that often presents a paradox so often manifested in everyday life.

Life is so light in its everyday mundane simplicities, whilst simultaneously being something so burdensome and heavy.

Light and heavy, two interrelated concepts which are merely extremes of one another.

I think life’s occurrences are similar to droplets of water. They’re typically light and small, but as they accumulate, the weight of it all accumulates to the point of overflow.

Often times I am stopped in my tracks in utter wonder when my small child tells me what a horrible day it’s been. What in the world could a 7-year-old deem horrible in his uncomplicated carefree existence? When I inquire, it turns out the game of handball at recess didn’t quite turn out as expected. In fact, the game is reckoned to have been so horrible that it was “the worst day ever”. I smile in amusement and can only wish I were in his place.

Of course, everything is relative.

I could go on to complain about a million things that REALLY DO take the grand prize of an ultimate unfortunate event  (in my perspective), but do they really matter in the grand scope of life as we know it?

How many worse things are there out there that I have not been exposed to, such as world hunger, homelessness, war violence? Now that would be unbearable, and even then – us humans are so adaptable to our surroundings. Whatever the case may be, we are resilient, we grow invisible shields, we are rocks against the worst tempest.

I remember a time when I grew accustomed to domestic violence. The pain became welcome in my frail body. Sometimes I felt it a necessity to remind me I was alive. The blows to my head - a symbol of anger that later morphed into love.

We live in paradoxes; it is all encompassing, and we adapt to the heaviness of the simple lightness of BEING.