A TESTAMENT TO ‘LONGING’

There’s been this film that has covered my aura, it’s plastic and it’s see through

and sometimes I forget it’s there.. but at times there will be an arbitrary trigger like a song or a picture, a scent or even a hair strand and people gleefully riding broken bicycles at night. I see your stupid haircut in hairdresser windows. it pulls at my insides like a familiar knowing, it an unwelcome friend. 

Today I was walking along the canal and I identified this object and I realised it was called ‘longing’. It told me it was its name and I pushed back! I’m not sentimental! Then a song came on and another and then the memories came back like a comforting friend, like a nice coffee, or a warm croissant. It was a tempting feeling and I allowed myself to finally surrender to it. 

In adulthood the older we get, perhaps this film feels tighter because we know that feeling you find with a person only comes rarely and with the folly of youth we take such moments or relationships for granted. Perhaps knowing its name ‘longing’ it called itself, made the plastic less tight, less constricting and the story you see in your mind is more.. of a welcome friend than it was before. 

I haven’t yet found the cure for it, but I’m starting to allow myself to love with it more, it might not go away but at least in acknowledging its existence things can feel less and less.. tight. I’m old enough but not yet wise enough to really take the film off. It’s the comfort in the a sense of the person, or the memories that stubbornly refuse to fade. The sunshine that rises from the canal keep a past memory, alive, unchanged, forever stagnant and unmoving. Love is a still statue, wrapped in plastic.