Quote of the day: "To fear love is to fear life, and those that fear life are already three parts dead."- Bertrand Russell

     The moon was low and the sky was fire, fed by the love of one man.

     This was not the ordinary love you would read of in chestnut or chronicle; neither epic nor lyric could ever create its art. Intimacy, devotion, loyalty... simple words that do nothing but insult and underestimate. Sirens with their lips on the ears of the ignorant, unable to express the song to those deaf and dumb souls known as "we." We try to love, and we do, but this love is better, though far worse. Simple and complex. Intricacies and intangibles swirl with blinding conclusion, glaring and explicit. Knowledge that we can never have, as it beats us down every moment of our existence.

     And I? I am a simple record of what was and is, bound by truth and eloquence, though surprisingly absent of both. This account concerns me only in retrospect, visiting me nightly, accompanied by sweat and regret, in the garb and trappings of nightmare and insomnia. This and that. It was, and is.

     You're thinking of the love. Perhaps of a beautiful maiden, with locks of a summer day. Eyes that are deeper than divine comedy, assaulting your emotions. A gentleman, honorable and fair. Handsome. Strong, but soft. They join, interlocking, complementing each other's features as brambles in the thicket. They are water, and they are perfect.

     This, however, is not the case.

     The love of a man and woman would not haunt me so. Night after night would not be lost to terrible recollection, tormenting me of what was. A romance as such has never taunted or tortured, except for the case of prior engagements. The passion of others would not drive me mad.

     to be continued...