Unrequited Love

I've dug some old files today and came across a piece I've written more than a decade ago.  This one is about unrequited love, romantically, that is.   As I write this blog, the lines of the song "I remember the boy, but I don't remember the feeling anymore" keeps playing in my head. After all these years, my perspectives have changed, but in hindsight, it must have been an agonizing experience that churned my creative energies into bringing about this poem. 

www.flickr.com/photos/40579917@N00/

If there's one theorem about love that sank deep into my head is that "Love is not just a feeling." I don't remember where I assimilated the idea, probably in class or from my readings, but I believed it.  If love were only a feeling, then the objects of our love would change instantaneously, just as our feelings change.  Paradoxical to this is that "Love is a choice." On second note, if loving is a choice and we chose to love a particular person, then why do we feel that our love is unrequited?  I don't consider myself to be a philosopher of some sort, but I think I do have an answer to that.  We feel unrequited love because THE PERSON WE LOVE DOES NOT LOVE US THE WAY WE WANT HIM OR HER TO LOVE US, but to say that the person did not love us, may still be a fallacy.  

So, going back to my issue:  unrequited love?  Probably not.  After a decade or so, I believe that I was loved in return, only perhaps, not the way I wanted the person to. 

Heart's Lament 

The anguish of a mute heart 

ECHOES 

your distance. 

Shadows magnifying the 

DESOLATION 

of the streets 

Walking abreast but 

HESITANT 

to touch each other's hands. 

TIME 

indeed is the greatest 

FOE 

of those who wait. 

Joy Griva

January, 1996