Tabla
I am surrounded by heartache. Heartbreak. In the midst of a mass of gyrating, intoxicated bodies; of souls lost to the music; of minds dimmed by drinks; of words half slurred and half laughed, I am surrounded by heartache. I see their attempts to extinguish the roaring furnace inside their chests, to obliterate all thoughts from their heads. I have so much to say, but there are no words. Their smiles entreat me, begging for comfort. Or better yet, for me to just make it go away. They dance. They drink. They laugh. They are convincing in their well-practiced social charade. But the heaviness of their emotions is palpable. I want to shoulder their burdens for them. I want to shake their shackles free; to find the magic that will lighten their loads. But I don’t understand. They must see the inevitability of love’s end. They surely understand that life is ever changing, evolving, fluid. One cannot depend on a constant. Love is doomed to fail before it has begun. We are engineered to be broken.
I used to think that love transgresses the selfish desires of being together forever, or only loving those who love you back – love is about embracing the other as you do yourself. But we aren’t built that way.
We seek out those we want to fix and those we hope will fix us.
We yearn for that unshakeable connection with another soul that comes with the power to heal. We want to feel whole. We want to love and to feel loved. We want to feel. But when it doesn’t work out, when our faults, our pride, our indomitable sense of self result in a painful end, we return to our broken shells, plaster on our make-up and fabricated smiles, and go out to drink, to dance, to forget.
