Spend all you have for loveliness
Buy it and never count the cost
For one white singing hour of peace
Count many a year of strife well lost,
And for a breath of ecstasy
Give all you have been, or could be.

-Sara Teasdale

It would seem that the natural tendency of human beings is to drift into monotony. Things that once made the heart quicken and feet feel lighter fade away all too soon. People that used to astound us at every meeting grow more predictable and less engaging. Each day becomes a desperate, unconscious search for a new experience or a new individual to make life seem new again.

Because it's so rare, most people rarely find it. Their consolation prize is to form habits of life and interactions with people that are comfortable, and that make up for their lack of originality with another lack: that of a threat.

But when we are young, we fight it - fiercely, violently, and some would say cruelly. Though, really, we are not as cruel as some might think. What we are, is young - and confused, and yearning for something, and desperate not to give up on that unknown ideal toward which we are constantly striving. And in that vein, in our youth we are quick to abandon that which we have accumulated but never really wanted, for a mere glimmer of a chance at something we have always wanted. It also seems natural to leave something, even that we do want, for something we've wanted longer, or simply more.

Though it may hurt when this is the reason that others leave us, can we really blame them? The heart wants what it wants, and no amount of credited karma, or tears, will change that. We may choose the evil we know over the evil we don't, but the same isn't always true for the good. Any unknown good might be better than our familiar "okay."

So when we see the chance for something great, we have to go for it - even knowing it is out of our reach. Maybe once in a while, if we're willing to take the risk of letting go of what we have, we'll be able to find something greater - something extraordinary. Perhaps the meaningful discoveries can only be made when one is already stumbling around lost.

So barter, and look for beauty in the betrayals and the sorrows. Something is out there that could be worth all of those torturous costs. Regret might kill us, but the hope and the quest for something better will keep us truly alive...and maybe even young.

The Angel

As soon as I looked at the stained glass window, I saw the angel. His face wore a strange mix of melancholy and wisdom that temporarily bewitched me. I spoke softly, "If only he were mine," just meaningless words tumbling out in haste for me to regret in leisure. But he came to me anyway.

At first I was flattered by the amount of attentions he gave me: the calls, the gifts, they were all enjoyable at first. But then I began to lose interest, and he didn't understand. As I pulled away, he only tried to increase his affections, and then I began to want nothing of him instead of merely less.

My guilt for corrupting an angel was outweighed by how much he ended up annoying me. He asked why, again and again, and none of my false, consoling answers satisfied him.

Finally, I could take no more. I took him by the hand and dragged him back to the church. Sitting him down in front of the Virgin Mary, I said, "Pray hard enough for me to love you the way you love me, and I will come back to you when your God makes it so." Then I left.

The Rock

I wasn't sure the snake was dead, which was why I looked to the rock for assistance. I had always thought it a rather ugly specimen, but for the reason I needed it, looks were unimportant. In jest, I spoke to it. "Mind if I throw you near the snake?" It looked at me, then said, "I'm afraid of snakes." It paused. "But go ahead."

I threw it near the snake, which turned out to be dead after all, then took the rock back with me. Though it never did initiate anything, it turned out to be a great conversationalist.

Of course, it always thought it was right and wouldn't listen to reason, but by the time I realized that, I had also begun to see that in the proper light it wasn't such a bad-looking rock after all. Its devil-may-care attitude and arrogant air made it impossible to abandon.

Unfortunately, the rock didn't enjoy our debates as much as I did, and had other plans. I caught it trying to climb into someone else's window one night when it thought I was asleep. So, I threw it into the snakepit forever, and readjusted my ideas on the importance of intellectual stimulation and good conversation in relationships. End of story.

The Consolation Prize

I didn't win the car, so they gave me the consolation prize behind door number three instead. I'd had quite a bit of faith in television, so I believed that maybe I'd be even happier with that thank-you gift than the real prize. But then the door opened, and I saw what waited for me behind it.

Needless to say, in the context of the lost automobile I was disappointed. Though this particular item was of a higher quality than the junk car the contest was for, it was still much too mediocre and common an object to really give any consolation. Also, I already had two of similar quality at home - and both of those were in the giveaway bag.

The announcer's voice pierced through my reverie delivering news of one more chance at a big win - but only if I was willing to sacrifice the consolation prize for good.

"Bring on my last chance!" I shouted, that boring transitional item already forgotten, and my eye on the jackpot.

The Painting

As soon as I laid eyes on the unfinished painting, I fell in love. Every other area and responsibility of my life fell away as I gazed upon that beautiful image and its contrast with the remaining blank areas of the canvas. In hopeful adoration, I waited, and I longed with the entirety of my heart for the apparition to speak to me just a single word, or touch my brow for a split second only.

But it merely grew along the canvas, and became more complex and enthralling as I watched, seemingly without knowledge and certainly without concern of my existence.

I tried to make it notice me, by telling jokes and by crying, by professing my love every day, five times a day, a thousand times a day, by trying not to visit it but fitfully breaking down and returning to beg its forgiveness.

Eventually I could not bear to leave its glory for even a single second, and so everything else in life slipped away.

I too became art, a statue fixed in place staring forever mournfully at the painting on the other side of the exhibit. And if any museum patrons happened to admire me, I was unaware of it.

You know at times I wondered
if you ever thought of me
and I wondered if you wanted to be free
like me, and I needed to feel you and
I wondered - did you miss me, baby?

- Shelby Lynne

It goes on and on, this postponement of life, this stillborn beginning, this voided creation. The days wander by, uncaring, unconstant, and though they may change in form, their substance remains just the same. Water that freezes to ice, or dries to clouds, or merely sits. The events, the people, the seasons alter, but only superficially. Their names no longer matter. Only the stories they shape do, both today's and all those that have preceded them. Even new songs have borrowed melodies.

There is a constant struggle against the omnipotent patterns that shape life, and one always fights on the losing side. The greatest hopelessness comes from that last remaining scrap of hope, burning ever so pathetically bright in the face of all adversity, making an even more obvious target.

...Did you miss me? Yes, no doubt, just as I have missed you, in every single one of your mirror incantations. But neither of us have been weak, or strong enough, to go to each other more than once. We reunite wholly only in dreams, which I guess you always knew better than I did.

...When it happened, they said his life was over. He'd lost his youth, his potential, his freedom. But while everyone else waited, and wait still, in purgatory for the sentence of a vengeful Lord, he had already resignedly set himself off on the path to hell. Perhaps he, in acceptance of his fate, will find redemption more easily by abandoning hope than they will, for all their repentance and gnashing of teeth.

Our Father, who art in Heaven, do You weary that Thy name has lost its hallowness? Me, I turned from Thy sanctity only in fear. To believe in You when You gave no sign was to risk far too much. But it has been for You alone that I sacrificed my soul to save my heart, and not the opposite. This has been Your pyrrhic triumph over me, to possess this vital part of mine, even without my belief attached. And I have no doubt that whenever the re-shattered pieces of my heart try in vain to comfort the hollow left behind by my soul, You smile. This is Your cruelty, and Your glory, and for this You will always have my respect, stronger of course than My love.

So much waiting, for judgement and for change, but either brings with it only illusions of the other. Darkness comes. Is it from night, or impenetrable clouds? There is a kind of shallow love for all the ones who have slipped away, and an unacknowledged sort for the ones who have been "set free" - deep and dark and seeming to speak only of drowning.

It comes to this, then, abstract and nonsensical words on what isn't even a page, written for those who don't care and read only by those who can't understand. If they did chance to understand, and braved acting upon it, I would surely drown in the floods of their simple, honest purity, and be burned by their holiness. But there exists no such understanding, and confused concern is deflected easily enough. I always choose to live on my knees, half-conscious, rather than surrender to the oblivion of death, of love.

I have acted in love only in letting you go. I don't know why it is that my heart, though perhaps just as pure, recoils in fearful horror at the idea of receiving your blessing.

So the withdrawal begins, and all meaning in reality recedes to that vision of purgatory, the mental trick of pretending that one day things will finally, truthfully, change.

But there is no omnipotent judge to direct our paths, and we are too weak to choose our own. Never decidedly doomed or redeemed, we wait, simply and forever cursed. This is eternity.