Have you ever wanted something, or someone? Everyone has felt desire at one point or another, it's only human. Desire can be a rapturous feeling, like riding a roller coaster. Desire can lead to creativity, life and all sort of wonderful things But desire has a dark side. It can be painful, it can keep you awake at night, when you see the object of your desire in another's hands, it induces feelings of anger and jealousy. People have done hideous things in the name of desire. Henry VIII is a prime example of how desire can lead to disaster and destruction. In the wake of his passion, many lay dead or heartbroken, including his wives, best friends and children.
So have you ever wanted something or someone, and gone to great lengths to obtain it, or thought about it constantly, made it the first thing in your mind, only to have it denied to you? It hurts. It hurts to have your object of passion denied you. When your heart has been ripped out and thrown on the ground only to be stepped on by uncaring, unfeeling assholes, is when Lady Despair take residence in your empty chest cavity.
Ah, despair. That gray-clad crone whose touch makes me think of freezing cold hovels, and dreary damp days. She lurks in cemeteries and refugee camps and she lurks in my heart.
Despair feels like wanting to cry, but having the tears freeze in your eyes before they have a chance to fall. Despair is like sitting by yourself at lunch everyday, because everyone thinks you're weird and won't talk to you. Despair is that feeling you get when you ask someone out and they look at you like you're a monster. Like sending a love note that gets ignored and ripped up, and you find the remains on the ground, knowing they've been unread. I can go to great lengths about what despair is like, because I know her like the back of my hand, it's like I've always known, it's like she's been by my side since the day I was born, waiting for me.
"Be happy now," she says.
"But I'll be coming for you sooner or later. I always come back,"
She always comes back. She is a constant. Desire comes and goes, settling in my heart and my belly, setting things afire and getting my hopes up with her promises and her insinuations. She's a tease. But when she's had her fill of me, she departs, taking everything she can, while her sister Despair creeps into my empty chest cavity and mind, making herself comfortable, giving me headaches, stomachaches and the longing to fall asleep and never wake up.
All this puts me in mind of a quote by Neil Gaiman, regarding that foolish emotion known as love, he writes:
“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.”
Thank you, Mr. Gaiman, for perhaps the truest words ever spoken. It's true. If only he'd never once looked at me, perhaps I wouldn't be having tea with Lady Despair.
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