martyrdom

    I love freely. It's the only way I know how. Even when I try not to, I still wake up one day and find myself in love. It's not the best feeling in the world. In fact, I would like to compare it to being a martyr. I give and give, and all I get in return is pain, longing, suffering. And yet, to everyone who passes, I am the happy smiling girl, who knows nothing about anything. It's quite a tremendous shock to them when I open up. The bright and innocent shell breaks to reveal a cold and hardened interior. I see it in their faces, the confusion, then the open astonishment as they realize they've never really known who it was they've been talking to for the longest time.

    I know that I am not the only one who loves like so. I know they feel it too, the desperate relief that lightens my chest when I see another of my kind. When we see each other, either in the dimly lit streets or in the narrow hallways at work, and find out who the other is, the silence that passes between us, the weak smile, the quiet understanding, is everything.

    To love as a martyr is to be locked in a glass cage whose key has been thrown out the window, never to be found again. It is to watch, but never touch, your love's life as it unfolds in front of you. The glass is transparent, clear as day, but so impenetrable that no bullet or arrow of love will be able to get through. His life is a movie that you watch, but never have a hand in directing.

    To all the people out there that have never loved like I do, I wish you all the good luck in the world. I wish that you may never feel the pain that courses through my veins, like a sinister evil that up to now makes my fingers shake. May you never have to love like so. May you always be happy with your love.

    To all the people out there that have loved like I do, you- no, we- are all stupid as we are noble. Anyone who has never experienced what we have would agree, for they know nothing. The only thing I can say, though, is that at least I have loved by my own choice. I have loved freely. I will go on to love freely. It is a stupid, but noble thing to do. And to all the people who have chosen to do as I do now, I smile weakly and say nothing.