the pastel painter

i miss her so much. i hate being human sometimes. i just hate it. sometimes there's so much pain. perhaps i should have been a plant to grow tall and sway in the spring breeze, or a rock perched high above to watch sunsets for millennia while silly humans come and go with their religions and their wars, their violence and their feigned kindred. humans don't make sense to me. yet, i am one. and sometimes i hate it. i relate to stories i read where transgendered people feel trapped in the wrong body. i feel trapped in the wrong species. sometimes i don't want to be this. it's not who i am. i just don't relate to these creatures.

except for love. there, i relate all too well. why couldn't i just relate to tool use, or language, or social interaction? but alas i relate to love.

i miss her so much. i want surgery that removes whatever cancer is in my brain causing this love syndrome. it's always been so much hurt; it's always just "almost;" it's always an arrival ready for departure.

and so i've failed. i don't want to try again. can these humans live alone? i feel like i should know because i'm one of them. but i'm naive, and i'm alone. i don't want to care, but i do. i want to be immune -- unaffected by this pathogen. stoic. safe.

i learned recently she's doing exactly what i thought she needs to be doing. and that's so beautiful. i'm so proud of her. the strength she employed and the risks she took are admirable. she'll grow into something even more beautiful. and that makes me so happy. and yet, i'm so sad -- sad because of the finality. she's gone. that's the twisted irony: her happiness is my loneliness. indeed, that's selfish of me but it's how i feel nonetheless.

i want to be a rock, perched high above for no one to see, no one but the pastel painter hiding among the clouds, quietly painting his sunsets for the few humans that resign to look up. now there's an entity with whom i can relate. why couldn't i have been a pastel painter? instead, i am a loving human being.

please, make me immune.