Article: 261586 of talk.bizarre
From: Kelly J. Coooper <kjc@apocalypse.org>
Newsgroups: talk.bizarre
Subject: Grieving
Followup-To: talk.bizarre
Date: 02 Dec 1995 09:22:06 GMT
Organization: Rancho Apocalypse
Lines: 41
Message-ID: <KJC.95Dec2042206@asylum.apocalypse.org>
Status: O
X-Status: 


  I feel obligated to preface this with the fact that it is not me. 

  I've been spending quite a bit of time lately watching the death of
love.  

  It doesn't pass quietly or simply or easily.  Not that I really
expected it to, but I have never been (so far as I know) IN love and
thus, in unfamiliar territory, I find myself ignorant.  I observe.
Mesmerizing, almost, but more raw.  You cannot soothe this away, or
treat it or fix it, though I offer comfort and when he can accept it,
it seems to help.

  Sometimes it is quick, ripping and tearing and shredding.  And
sometimes it is not and peels the layers of sanity and dignity away
slowly.  I'm sure it is much more painful to actually go through, but
to watch it is unexpectedly wrenching, primarily because I care about
him-what-it's-happening-to but also because the open-wound quality of
it makes everything jagged.

  He grieves.  So I suppose it would be more accurate to say that I am
watching him grieving, rather than watching an intangible emotion
itself die, but that's not all that I see.  He is changing.

  Sometimes he just stops what he's doing and his face gets slightly
twisted, looking half like a sneer of laughter and half like the wince
of a stomach ache, and his eyes go strange.  And sometimes, when that
happens and I'm around, he locks gazes with me and makes a tiny noise
in his throat like a half-grown puppy with a broken leg.  I can almost
feel the splintered ends of bones grating against each other.

  I cannot adequately express in words what it is doing to wrench the
reality around him.  I am hiding behind my words enough as it is
rather than really try to articulate what I see and feel.  And so I
look on, watching the death of love, and I cringe.

--
Kelly J. Cooper                                   kjc@apocalypse.org
	    http://www.apocalypse.org/pub/u/kjc/home.html
         "How long before wings?"  -mary szmagaj, "nocturne"