Letting it be ( short story)

I was reading Bukowski and part of of his poem would not leave my mind

I do not want to love you
I do not want to save you
I do not want your arms
I do not want your shoulders
I have me
you have you
Let that be.

***

"Evan I'm seeing someone, I just thought I'd let you know."

Adele's voice echoed in my head. This was it, you know. The ultimatum, the relationship, the end of torture really. It was always going to end this way. I was not myself anymore since I met her. I could not be and that was not something you could build a relationship on.

But that didn't lessen the blow. It still hurt. And not just emotionally, I felt it physically too. All throughout my body I felt soreness. My stomach dropped, I wasn't hungry. My being ached like it hadn't in a while.

"Ok Adele, that's great you sound happy..."

And it just came out, all the appropriate mature things I'm supposed to say. It felt like stabbing myself in the soft part of my temple. I was so low already, I didn't know where to go from there. There was no anger in my heart towards her, how could there be. I didn't even feel sore towards whoever she was now with. I wasn't even mad at myself. I was just there.

Numb all over like I wasn't breathing. Like I was drowning but accepting it. I had no desire, no drive, no sadness, no fear, nothing.

We hugged and I walked out the door, into the warmth of daylight but it was lost on me. I always thought I might cry if it ever came to this, but no tears came.

I was just alone.

Love was never a risk worth taking. Not when I knew it would always end like this. Or I should say, what I thought was love would always end like this. In my heart I knew that what attraction I had for Adele, no matter how insatiable it seemed, was not real love.

It was the absence of it. It was like starving. It was like a mouth watering off of the smell of a meal alone. I didn't know what I sought but I knew I wanted it badly.

I thought back to a conversation I had with Eleanor almost a year before.


"What does being in love mean to you?" I asked her half jokingly.

But she took it quite seriously.

"Depends which kind... if we're talking about the love for people, I believe it means to be willing to do anything for that person without selfish intentions and to show your love to them. As far as romantic love... Loving someone would be when you cant stop thinking about them and love them despite their mistakes because they're that worth it."

I looked at her and knew that somewhere in that definition she probably had me in mind.

"What about you?" she asked.

So I thought. I thought beyond all I knew about love and what I had experienced so far, because I recognized that it was not really love at all. Finally I answered her.

"Love is... watching someone die," I joked, quoting a Death Cab song.

"No come on, you can't just quote," she said a little annoyed but smiling. I stopped smiling and gave her my real answer.

"Romantic love, is knowing someone as completely as they'll let you and them knowing you as much as they are willing to learn and knowing that if nothing else you were completely yourself with one person in your lifetime. To me anyways."

That was the most honest I ever was to myself or anyone else about love.


So maybe love was worth taking risks for, I didn't know. But the hunger for it was all the same. Whether you had it or not, there was no hope, there was no reason to fight.

And so I continued to walk, walk, walk away. Back to my car, expressionless and silent.

I didn't listen to music cause I wanted no consoling. I felt nothing. Like nothing. And I wondered how long it would be before my mouth watered again. Sometimes it took years. Would I even care by that time? Tomorrow was my birthday and I did not care.