The streetlamp's shadow
Posted by sniffles at July 01, 2004 03:31 PMTelling you that I love you seems an inherently selfish act, so I said these words to you while you were sound asleep, to relieve myself of the explosive emotion that would otherwise destroy me from the inside — this immense, uncontrollable pressure trapped under my skin, of a love too big to be contained within my heart alone.
Perhaps my moment of weakness would somehow benefit you — drive away your doubts, bring you a certain pleasure — but that would have merely been a convenient side-effect. It is only for the sake of my selfish existence that I give in to the binding power of these words ...
The sky is very blue today; clouds passing by paint with splashes of indigo, in valiant attempts to obscure. The winter wind, like a young untamed child, tears wildly around every house, every tree, every other living thing.
I stand huddled in the doorway of a shop that has been closed for some time, waiting for the bus to appear around the corner, my left hand and my pen frozen into a single scrawling entity. The song echoing in my ears carries memories of another time, another place, another day. But today, I stand in the biting wind — first turning into the doorway for shelter, finally cramming my body up against the tarnished doorknob in poor attempt to keep out of the wind's way, blatantly ignoring the sign threatening "Danger - Keep Off - Authorised persons only" above the door, thinking about how much I want to tell you that I love you more than everything there is.
— "630 bus-stop @ Huntingdale station",
Sketches from Melbourne and Love (anonymous).