The Pursuer

This relates more to the past than the present, I should think. I write and publish as testimony and expulsion of the things I have thought, may continue to think, but hope to be rid of one day.

Why do I have to work so hard for so little reward? Why don't people think "Ah, that Liam's a catch, let me show him I'm interested." Where's the nightingale to press her heart against the rosebush thorn, and sing for her faith in love? Why does that faith immediately prove as much vanity as religious faith: fear-based, consolatory, mythical? I watched a cartoon of the Wilde short story that goes with it and was like, wow, love sucks. So I then went up to my room and read it - "The Nightingale and the Rose" - and in all I went about doing, thought about it, all day. Why am I the pursuer, and not the pursued? What distinguishes me from those catches, those elusive beauties and non-beauties whose hearts men like me pine for? And if I sit and think about THAT, I start to worry. It all becomes painfully clear why this happens to me again and again. Why men crush my heart to dust. Because these are the qualities of the pursued:

Beauty. I can't begin to start explaining how many ways I fall short of this by any objective measure, but I can safely assure myself - especially in mind of worry and whatnot - that clearly no one in the world finds me attractive enough to want to keep around.

Grace. From casual clumsiness, to not being au fait with the ways of romance (all I know, I know from books and failed romances), to a stupified understanding of the workings of the world. The pursued appear like angels in the wind, delicate and elusive but as if they might be carried away at any moment.

Mystery. There is nothing mysterious about a man who is honest. Every aspect of my personality is exposed either casually, in confidence or in fact of sight. I don't believe in harbouring secrets, in lying to casual strangers about whether or not they're fat or making pleasantry on the phone where I have no pleasant sentiment. Truly, the pursued are naturally of a countenance which implies there is something to be discovered!

Wealth. Of so many respects. The wealth of money, of knowledge, of experience. I have none. I have little to my name, I have aptitutdes that are unexpressed but no true wisdom, and no experience in tender age or in life lived. My life is hollow with absences which pervade its fragile structure. The pursued give off a charm of limitless potential, of such interesting facts and memories and so much to share. What do I have?

Irreverence. The most important one, and within it, all of the above. They don't care about anything but in this is the illusion that they might harbour some deep-abiding passion, or potential for change which as experience (what little I have) had told me will always fail to materialise. And it's always apparent from the beginning. I have none: I express motivation in my calculated apathy, I express desire in my every glance and inquisition, I express hope in my every sorrow that all is lost.

So am I "special" this time, or any time? Time will tell. My enemy, time. That word: inevitability, haunts me from before I knew what I was writing about when I wrote about the boy at the window those days and days ago. The boy I had never conceptualised as one (and was, inspired by one in the past). The boy I do not know and will never know, every one of them.