Fragments: Confessions of Love I. - the memoirs of a heartbreak

A Mysterious Prelude

November 25th, 2024. That was the day I lost everything. Philosophy was no longer a choice but an act of defiance against myself. At the moment it was the last thing I desired but once again crucially the only thing. If faith is salvation, then philosophy is a remedy, but only insofar as “there was nothing else”. Misery became the only truth. And once more faith was forced upon me. —I wanted love, just a touch of it as if I was the dying man. The dying man who had nothing but himself. And that freak! You cannot even call that miserable self a self. He lived, breathed, and loved (and still loves) but he did not have love. Did he even live then? — Oh, I was about to become that man. I wanted to love, even more crucially to be loved, I gave myself up for it, I gave my heart away — and all I got back: a return to faith, but crucially ONLY FAITH! …Is that even faith?

This is the story of the dying man. But he could not have always been dying. Surely he must have lived? but then again he is the dying man. And how could such a man have lived?

Obviously, we are not talking about a medically ill person; this man was not diagnosed by a doctor and sentenced to die within a year. But he might as well have. This dying man might as well be diagnosed and symbolically categorized and displaced among the dying, as one of the dead. His heart was ill and is that not the anti-symbol of life? He had a dead man’s heart.

How can you actually love yourself? All the pretense aside, what is left? If you looked in a mirror and saw your lovely self, would you now fool yourself into believing you are lovely? The mirror is just one more illusion. It is similar to the common saying “you must love yourself before you can love anyone else”. But how can you fall in love then, you miserable freak?

only there was a God: what a magnificent world that would turn out to be.

It is said that you do not choose your parents. But neither do you, on an authentic level, choose yourself. Like faith it is forced upon yourself; all the beauty of imperfection, the impregnable imagination, the ferocious servitude to a dying life, oh the beauty of it, what more: a life of terrible insight, freakish misery, the ardent possibility, oh the possibility of love, the greatest misery in life. But paradoxically it is the greatest chance in life, the utmost grasp of the dying life. Oh, I wish the university professor truly knew what a punchable face looked like…for what better than smacking love?!

Have you ever been incapable of crying? That is, there are no tears left to shed; the will, of course, is there, but unpleasingly your body resists. Alas, further insult! You cannot even have beautiful melancholy sadness. Instead, you are confined to this very silence, of not having any tears left to shed. In their bleak and hallucinating beauty, your eyes cannot produce the epitome of sadness, in no way whatsoever. You can feel your burning cold nose, trembling hands, aching body, and most of all your aching mind, which cannot be allowed to rest for one moment. Oh, the thought of being refused to suffer purely and humanly. “Oh, what must I do for a bottle of red wine” the dying man pleads — to no avail.

The beginning

1. We must now start “in the beginning”. For like you, this dying man was created like the depiction of Genesis 1. Or in any possible way of creation. Some absolute will, oh for God said “Let there be light” and in His magnificent omnipotence, he gave light. Then came sin, the evil temptation, the mischievous serpent, the mother of all evil, convinced our forefathers to eat the forbidden apple. And like Adam and Eve, we too have sinned. But in what possible way? Yes, the dying man was tempted, challenged, and hurt, but did he really sin? And yes he sometimes lost faith, but can you blame him? Was he supposed to hold onto faith? The very fate that burned and steaked him alive, chained him to a bed for years, who gave him love just to tear it away afterward, who gave him the ardent possibility just so he could weep of the possible? Or was the dying man just unlucky?

2. Maybe his real sin was falling in love with the loveliest girl in the world. God said: “Oh, now I will make his heart break, over and over again – I will make him live as if he was ‘dying’”. God created the dying man. And you ask him, the dying man, to have faith? How dare you? Have I defied you enough? Have I shaken YOUR Earth? Do I deserve another spanking? Have I been a bad boy? This is the dying man’s situation. Yet, he never complains, he never defies his bestowed master, and he never speaks ill or gossips to his fellow comrades of suffering. He never ceases to love his only girl…oh, he never ceases to love the world; more prudently: he never ceases to hold onto the ardent possibility. But still, God made him suffer? And surely not just for the sin of Adam and Eve? He must be the happiest sadist ever. Oh, not even Sade could complain. Maybe God tends to make each and all of us into sadists…except the lonely sufferer, he will be chained to his post, forced to resignation, without tears, and exposed naked to the world holding fast to the only postcard of his life, of the loveliest girl in the world. For that memory alone makes dying livable. Whether she was lost for all eternity. Whether he was ever allowed to properly love her again. Whether he was destined to weep alone for the rest of his life. That single memory of having gotten to love her closely could make life somewhat bearable. 

3. The crowd shouted “mercy on him” and God thought it was a joke, or made it into a joke – oh yes, he did not put gasoline on the fire, worse, he put a timer on the cable, like a stick of dynamite about to explode, the dying-man was allowed to watch the fuse closing in on him – and as if it could get worse, God stopped the fuse from getting to the ignition point, momentarily, and then set it on fire again. He was allowed to love the girl for eternity, however, at a distance – he could watch her, seek her, comfort her, but he was chained to the small moments of loving her up close – God said: “That’s enough” and now even she is a possibility, the grandest of them all. The dying man asks himself: is God going to tease the same way the next man who tries his luck with the girl? Is she the forbidden fruit? Or was she only the crown jewel of His plan? That is almost commendable! That she was meant to make him suffer. Oh, I must applaud your Holy Plan, my Lord.

4. But when do you lose the fighting spirit? Consider this dying man. He was ready to sacrifice for her. He was prepared to give his life for hers. He was prepared to perish for just this one girl. So now then, how is he supposed to react when he is not permitted to commit his “prepared” sacrifice? His precious little deed! How could anyone demand him to turn back to himself and see nothing but ruins, Babylon and it all? It’s like the Byzantine walls of Constantinople had fallen in his case a lifetime ago. Perhaps they were never even built for him.

If he got the chance he would have returned to her in a heartbeat. He would have sacrificed himself, one more time. And one more time. Oh, and I swear, this dying man has considered the inevitable. To still sacrifice himself, and leave the world a deserving parting gift. And now we are speaking literally. Make this dying man’s martyrdom jubilant! I command thee! But oh the inner conflict. For his kindness, aloneness, this utter conviction that God punishes him deservedly, an alienation of everything tangible, the indescribable absurd condition of his very existence, and most of all his perfectly sane moral consciousness and heart of steel (despite his dying condition) cannot allow him to make this final act. What an unjust and destructive act that would be for the girl! One man cannot break two Theodosian Walls. Perhaps he never even broke one, but symbolically something had collapsed and there was no remedy…for he was the dying man.

5. One could say his servitude was for love and not God. But would you not say precisely that it is the love for God that seals one’s eternal servitude to spirituality? Is then it not a commitment to love — be it a lovely girl, the loveliest girl, a parent, husband, friend, neighbor — in the deepest sense the very same act? Perhaps in a pure sense, it is a refusal of God, a life-affirming refutation against God’s will. But is it not the same act? A leap of Godly perplexion.

6. On a positive note, the dying man is not even bitter. He is not even the tiniest bit angry. Not at all mad at a world that gave him nothing. For God gave him life. Crucially God gave him love. Oh, who would not pounce at that incredible opportunity? Weirdly precisely this he cannot be: bitter in any way of this wretched malice. How ironic!

7. ‘Why me! Why me!’ He shrieks every night. He cannot be afforded even a moment of sleep. An utter conviction of his punishment never alludes to him. But why him?

8. What sin has he committed? That of being unfaithful? For can you demand him to obey his condition, that of making him endure all worldly misery that ever existed? How can the scripture say that he must pay the price of a clown called ‘Messiah’?

9. As S.K. said: “A believer is surely a lover, yea, of all lovers the most in love.”  And such was the story of the dying man...

Her lovely eyes

10. Oh modernity…how you have ruined love! Pure romantic love is an ancient art. Unfortunately, the dying man was the most devoted devotee of this dying school of pure love. He was a standalone individual, at least in this regard. And happiest of all he found the perfect target to devote himself to totally.

13. That day at the lake. Oh, he cries with tremendous joy! That day he lost his heart. But who would not be proud in giving in their most valuable asset, and for the loveliest girl? In the dark winter sky, lighted by stars, the romantics daydreams, he fell in love. No spoken words, cold and shivering bodily sensations, tender ice below his feet, slippery wet, or the girl who would not stop speaking, could distract him from this terrible insight – he had fallen in love. And she became his infinite reflection. She became his ultimate life. She became his all. She became the wanted, the sighted, and deeply within him the now hiddenly forming and carried despair. For how could such beauty last forever?

14. Oh, you must think this dying man was on some account frail, preconditioned to weakness, pain, and destruction. A pity to behold! But that could not be further from the truth. Not only a heart of steel but even more importantly a heart of unshakable strength, he possessed. Oh, this danger, believing you are unbreakable, unchangeable, forever in love – love has this terrible work planned in it. For God knows, he is truly the only lasting thing.

The dying man was a pretty man. His natural disposition was not weakness. For he loved the girl in strength. He pulled his hammer down and made the girl tremble. She felt something anew which she never had felt before, for this was the first time, it was something ‘new.’ This she could never feel again. But already within this trembling sensation, you could taste fear, for even she knew of the fleeting of life. The man remained ignorant of this. For what is more blinding than falling in love? In some sense, it forces you to believe. It strikes you like lightning, one moment you are in and the next you are out. It strips you naked and nails you to believe. What a beauty! To be nailed to the servitude of love!

15. Oh, the faithful promise of “forever” by the youthful heart. She made him confess; she made him promise. And he obliged. The dying man said forever and no one else. She did the same. But would she ever…

16. The daring of love. He dared to love her. He dared to cherish her. He dared to seek her. He dared to teach, her every secret, confession, and inch of suffering. He dared to take her suffering as his own. Only heaven knows what strength that required. She did too.

17. ‘She smiled,’ ‘She smiled’ – he repeated twice over thrice – ‘she smiled at me! at me! at me!!’ That, if anything, tears a heart. The heart goes to a battle in a condition of open-heart surgery. No helmet, no armor, only the spirit of heart – against the resistance of machine guns, artillery, mortars, mechanized, armored, and tanks – and he still believes he is to be victorious. For he knows, this love of his, cannot be shaken or besieged. His love is simply bullet-proof. Nor can it be exploded, maimed, or shocked. His love is, excuse my expression, Godly!

18. The dying man once considered releasing her. For he knew he could not ask of her the same, this “mad love” of his, yet he despaired for her to be mad in love as well. Morally then, has the dying man let the girl on a false trail? If he knew this terrible secret from the beginning, should he not have confessed? Of course, he was determined that she already knew this truth. Yet, he never confessed. Oh, he made the occasional remark, “I will always love you more” or “We both know who cannot bear to be without the other.” But crucially he did not confess nor demand her. What if that ruined true love? For he was mad, mad in love! Like Clarence Carter sang “I Can’t Do Without You,” he was destined for the same misery.

19. The dying man sometimes asked himself: “What if I never fell for her, what if I never gazed upon her, never opened myself, never gave her love?” But was it not destined? Predetermined? The man had two destinations in life, for one solitude and absurdity with himself, and oppositely beauty, sacrifice and insurmountable devotion – anyways both were not to be lasting, that, if anyone, God would make sure of!

20. “She loved me back.” It sounds unbearably comical, yet is this not the truth? That she loved him back was his greatest accomplishment. That memory could kill him. But rather it would manifest in this torture of not having her.

21. Still, he must ask “What if I had never begun with this ‘love affair’?” Would it not be so-so easy? Life without terrible insight, pleasurable love, and devotion. But would he not then have been the ‘dying man,’ not because of love, but because his despair was that of ‘not having been in love?’ Either way he seemed destined to be in despair whether with or without love. Love is despair!

22. Her beauty…unmeasurable! She was the palest of girls, but the intellect, kindness, fun-going, cute innocence, and demandingly independent characteristics, complimented appropriately. 

It is a selfish act, I know, but sometimes you wish the other to shed a tear for you. This dying man was desperate for her to shed a tear. He just wanted to know that he was not the only one – for that if something made this suffering perhaps barely bearable. To know she wanted him too. It was the life that got in the way. Not our love. But unfortunately, was it not precisely “our love” that got in the way. She released herself from the shackles and left him suffering alone.

A Short final word

If one thing, if anything positive came out of this misery, it surely must be that the poet can finally speak. His voice, his resonance, his utter conviction is finally ready to be given to the world. Maybe this will be his final act. And to be sure it is the happiest and most precious act left in him. However, the world still is not ready to receive him.

And he still loves her. But God? Only God knows...

Dedicated to the love of my life. Happy valentine's day!

O.K