Love is the most elegant form of coercion ever invented. We shape our beloved, with every smile of approval, every small frown of disappointment, every look we throw their way. Like Pygmalion, we create our ideal, only to discover we’ve turned a living being into a rather dull statue.
The next time you would see your loved one, they would have become so perfectly attuned to your needs, that they would have transformed into nothing, but a gentle draft that followed you through rooms, adjusting the temperatures to your comfort. You would never have noticed their attentiveness to the air around you. The truest sacrifice is the one that goes unnoticed by both giver and receiver. But it doesn’t always have to be like this.
Early this year, I loved someone. And he held the grease of untamed things, freedom and wildness. He belonged to the spaces between stars, to the wild current that swept across continents. And I would’ve loved him in the way, hawks love their prey—swift, clean, total in its devouring. My love would be like golden bars, my devotion, the silk threads of a beautiful cage. To love him completely, would mean gathering his essence in my hands, to keep his wings folded close to my heart. And in doing so, I would extinguish the very thing that makes him luminous—his freedom, his defiance of earthly bonds yet the desire to foster them. So I stepped away because I had seen this before, how love changes us subtly, and unremarkably. The change is so subtle that it could only be noticed in retrospect. But this is only one part of my poetic reasoning.
In my positioning, I found myself worried about the obstacles between us, although in another light, these would not be obstacles, but opportunities. That’s the nature of my job, you know, to acquire a lens and way of thinking where you view challenges as opportunities—and influence others to do the same. Borders are an important concept, they exist to define territory, protect sovereignty, manage resources, cultural identity, etc. but to me, that particular border represented a physical and bureaucratic barrier, made me susceptible to some level of discrimination, meant separation from my beloved and worse– possible loss of hope. I thought about all the ways I fell short, about the difficulty in permeating those borders. This came with some resentment, thinking of how easy it was for my beloved to saunter through the borders of my heart, yet getting to him… You wouldn’t believe me if I croaked.
The tragedy of love is not that it ends, though heaven knows this is tragedy enough, but that it succeeds. Maybe my beloved was aware of this fact. Maybe it scared him. I know it scared me. A defibrillating shock to my system that ushered me to a world of possibilities. There was a time when I envisioned a connection that transcended geograpghy—a bond strong enough to defy distances and bridge worlds. Yet, like roots trying to grow in unfriendly soil, the circumstances surrounding it revealed their own challenges. I considered alternative paths, places where the boundaries were more forgiving, but the dream of compromise was not mutual.
Over time, the urgency of that journey faded, replaced by another pursuit: coming home to myself. I poured energy into my craft, nurtured my independence, and allowed my mind to expand like it did before in Fred’s reading nook at the Library. This year alone, I stepped onto foreign soil not once, but twice, fueled by the quiet realization that life could be abundant whether or not certain hands held mine. And with each step, I discovered something profound: the love and partnership I sought outwardly already existed within me. My beloved had a message from the universe and I finally made out what that old voice that I kept hidden for so long was telling me. Now somewhere, the reflection of that hope thrives, and has aligned with the version of me that has learned to walk boldly alone.
So I choose to keep this love and undefined, suspended in the space of possibility. Let the person he is now remain vital and free, not archived in photographs, filed away in dusty cabinets. I will express my love as I am now, with a conscious act of keeping my hands open, letting the bird soar where it must, perhaps this is love’s highest form— the wisdom to recognise when passion must bow to freedom, when the deepest expression of devotion is simply to witness, to cherish, and to let go.
