This Story Will Never End (1)
Loneliness is the story of my life. It is true that each of us follows some kind of goal, some kind of ideal. Some see it happen, while others fail every time they try. My own ideal was doomed from the very start, when I made that one mistake, only to see myself rejected over and over and over. Every failure left a scar, and they all take long to heal. My private drama warped my sense of purpose and left me empty of any ability to communicate. I am not wanted around. It is as if I don�t exist. Alone, with all this love that I have to give, and not a soul needing it from me. But I am not one who resigns herself, ever. It would be too easy. Every wound in my heart made it ripe with feelings, a volcano of emotions waiting to erupt, to go somewhere, to find someone. Every morning I wake up more ready to live, lava flowing through my fingers, searching the world, searching for that one person who wants my love. But there are so many who meet me with hate, that it is harder and harder to keep hoping. But they could not defeat this resilient heart that still wants to love. I am the same as I was before. I was always fair in the game of love. Maybe too honest to keep me close to those I loved. But love does exist! I can still love this flower, this creature, this butterfly, this bug, anything that crosses my path, I love, while others will kill it. I need to shelter these bits of life from those who only know how to hate. The passion of my youth has not left me yet. I feel I am the same as before. And now, there he is, a youthful heart waiting for me to love him. Yet my love cannot, will not become more than a secret, a secret that I will have to carry with me without as much as a whisper to anybody around me. They would think me mad. Reality is always madness, it is dreams that are sane. I want to scream to the world that love is the only salvation, but how much more hate can I take from them? I call him my golden sphere. His warm, tender voice flows through my heart. I breathe through him, and through him I relive those fleeting days long gone. The difference between then and now is that now there is no hope, and yet I play the game of love knowing that it hurts and it will hurt forever. This bitter-sweet pain that I feel gives me the will to go on, in spite of them. Or rather, to spite them. They see an abyss between me and him, but death is the only abyss that will ever separate us. I lay a kiss on the smooth heartless plastic of the tapes he made for me. As I listen and cry, his soul grows like a diamond in my heart. He is with me every night and sings for me only. In my loneliness, he came as a ray of light, a glimmer of life, a grain of happiness. I am happy. I know I shouldn't, but I love him and only him. My boy � that is what I called him first, for he reminds him of another, long lost to me. Later, I realized that it was not the past I saw in him, but the present, a very real, pulsating present. I am in love! Cupid mocks me, after all those times in which my heart had to bleed for too much love. Oh, sure, you may say I deserve it�after all I myself have made other hearts bleed, and called them �not my type�. But I thought, then, that I had a right to do it to others when I myself was rejected by those I loved. Isn�t this how it always goes? But wasn�t that punishment enough? Still, loving him makes me happy. I love him with unequaled passion and, even though we cannot be together, I know�I feel�that he loves me too. But how can I fight them all to reach him, to be with him? I see him on TV less and less often. I miss him, day and night. I sleep less and less, the light of my sweet love replacing the darkness in which I drift, unable to fall asleep. But it is torture, too. His songs play in my mind over and over, stealing me from sleep. I watch the light of dawn welcome the world, while I feel farther and farther from it. I miss him more and more, and even the chirping of the birds in the morning reminds me of his voice. I still cannot believe I can love so much, still love so much. There�s so much chaos in my soul that I cannot even attempt to bring it to order. I want wings to fly away into forever, where nobody would find me and know that I exist. As if they cared. Maybe it�s better this way. The sadness of sleepless nights is like a symphony that dies away as the retreating ocean, a step back in a dance, a softening of a violin. The magic of my inner music captures my heart with deadly sadness, because everything cannot be but lost. The petals that seemed to be opening to the light of morning are closed again. It is hard to fight one�s own feelings. Every time I try to purge my heart, the void is too hard to bear. To give him up is to give life up. Seeing his video saves my life every time. For just a moment. Then it all goes away, and I am left struggling anew. I hesitated for days before I sent him my first words, through the show�s live messages. I could not contain my emotions when I sent him this line: �You are my golden sphere. I love you more than you can imagine�. He answered back: �I love you too�. I could not have been happier. To me, that was communication. A bridge from my heart to his. And that was only the beginning. Other messages followed, and between us a door opened, a mental bond, a true connection. He is engaged to be married. Therefore, so the messages that followed were unsigned, so that she wouldn�t discover what we had. I still believe that she knows, because one of the messages said �It is a beautiful thing to love, but only if you love someone real�. I think that was his fianc�e. We sent each other many messages on TV without signing our names, but the last one he sent said �good bye�. I understood that something must have changed. One message congratulated him on his marriage, and I understood. If he was getting married, we could no longer speak to each other. I had to live with that, because he lived in a world where I didn�t belong. A message from his future wife struck my heart like lightning: she asked him never to let her down. I felt I was suffocating, as if a black cloud was engulfing me. I needed him more than ever, and yet he was pushing me away. I prayed. I asked God to help me, but He didn�t want to pull him away from my heart. I look calm and happy to the world, but my desperation sinks deeper and deeper in my soul. I cannot help but carry this secret. Somehow, I find the strength to go through the motions and nobody notices what I am going through, but I don�t know for how much longer I can live like this. But I know now that it is an impossible love. We lost touch. Maybe that�s what they wanted: maybe they convinced him that this is what he is supposed to do. I love people, I love even my own enemies, but why can�t they let me be? How I could die in his arms right now, if only I could reach him. Maybe I ask for too much. If any ending to my story is possible, that ending can only be sad. So I keep listening to his music, watching his videos, hoping that maybe one day I could at least ask him for an autograph. I would thank him politely, even. Maybe he would even let me hug him. I will not say good-bye. No, there will be no ending. This story will never end because my love will never end. I know I cannot see him, they won�t let me. Can�t you see that! I cannot live like this anymore! No advice can tame me, no friend, not even God! Here I am, floating on clouds again. Every time I think it�s all over, I find myself back in the same emotions that drown me in sweet ecstasy. God is angry with me because I didn�t listen, so I deserve to suffer. My idol goes on living his life, though sometimes he sends a message just to keep me alive. I don�t want empty words, though it is soothing to read them. Fridays bring me bad luck � like that time when I lost a man that I wanted more than anything in the world. Now I have to avoid thinking of him on Fridays. But when I saw his message asking me to give him a sign, I could not resist. I sent him one. I said, �I love you, forever, I miss you miss you miss you�. That was my mistake, saying that I loved him. They did not post the message on the screen. They don�t want me to reach him, they will stop me. A few hours later, he sent me another message, and he sounded nervous and irritated: �I don�t want to hear it, I don�t love you, good bye�. I understood that they would not let him talk to me anymore. He works in television. That is why they won�t let him talk to me. They know who I am and will do anything to stop me. But why, then, did he ask me for a message? I resigned myself to silence that Friday, for fear something else would go horribly wrong. I actually loved like this only three times in my life. I probably should not love, because my love is total, I cannot give half measures. Why can�t I stop?... I didn�t cry when he said good-bye. I decided to stop sending messages, and only wait for him to say something. I guess it�s a dangerous game, and I should not play it anymore. There are many risks involved. But how can you kill a feeling that lives inside of you? I know I don�t have the looks I once had, but I have desires just like anybody else. Why can�t they see that? I am full of energy, full of life. I am in love with a younger man, yes, but my love is as tender and pure as the one he can receive from someone his age. I think my mistake is wishing for perfection, and that he cannot give me. Still, life without love is meaningless at any age, and I think I deserve to be loved as much as anybody else. I am so confused, so totally confused. I need for something to change. I need something to give me courage to go on, to face them all, to fight them all. I have no tears to cry. I have fallen forever into the night. Now all I have left are his tapes, and I listen to them all day long, broken hearted. How happy I was before! I lost him again now. Why are other fans allowed to write to him like that, but not me? I did not turn on the TV for two full days, to see how I feel and how he feels about it. And yet the multicolored weaving of this dream is so alive, so fantastic, that love overcomes any reality. They cannot break it. I cannot break it. There will be no end to this dream. The third day I turned on the TV at the exact moment when he wrote to me: �Please forgive me, I did not mean to hurt you. I love you and I will always love you, I miss you�. That was when all my doubts, all my fears went away. I think I was cursed never to be happy. I am falling again, and I think this time there is no hope left. He told me �you need to find a man who loves you�. I feel so defeated. And still, I cannot accept it. I won�t. I can�t. Maybe I should not listen to his music anymore. The ashes of my love are still burning, and I�m afraid that trying to forget him would be useless. If I can�t talk to him, I will still miss him. Always. This story will never end. Will never end. Imagine a fairy tale where Prince Charming never arrives, but he�s always there, trying to reach the castle. I had taken a decision, but I went back on it, of course. How can I stop loving, when my blood runs through my veins so fast that it makes me dizzy. How can I dam this flood? Only commas will follow, never a period. I have wings, I expand, every minute I am larger and fly higher than ever before. A cosmic ecstasy carries me into a world where every secret thrill becomes a story in itself. Life is so beautiful as long as you can still dream! Dreams make us always feel young, relieving us of the burden of our years. Nobody would understand if I told them that I am as young as my love allows me to be. And, this way, I have never been younger. Yes, this innocent boy could be not even my son, but my grandson, but why should I resist the fascination? His voice, his songs, his smile tell and retell the story of my life. It is a miracle and I will not attempt to solve its mystery. I know he thinks of me and this makes me want to go on. He is my therapist, my voice, my music. The first video that I saw of him made me cry. It was not just his music that went right to my heart, but his presence, his being made me brim with feelings, so much that I had to cry. I would close my eyes and think of him sitting right next to me and I would be happy then. In fact, I feel him next to me all the time now. Sometimes I can almost hear him talk to me, and I wait for his touch. I know, in a way, that it is myself that I am talking to, but then again, he is part of me. He is here when I gather the leaves in the yard, when I watch the deepest blue of the sky, when I stand at the gate and watch the passers by. Then, I pray to God for a miracle, to bring him there, to the gate, so I could run and lose myself in his embrace and die kissing him. The real world is sad. Why would God not give me one moment of happiness after a lifetime of rejection? I am worth it, am I not? I must be the most unhappy person in the world. I live between disappointment and illusion, ecstasy and death, poisoned love and blinding light. Nothing is true; life itself is a big lie and only the eternal darkness of death seems real to me now. How much longer do I even have? And yet, his voice reaches me. He even sent me an anonymous message again, asking me to forgive him. I felt a little more serene, as if even death would be sweet if I had him to think of when I passed into nothingness. I know he went to Italy for a while, but he sent me a message from there: �I love you�. I may be wrong, but I�m pretty sure it was for me. Maybe he still wanted to keep in touch with me even from far away. I don�t know what to believe anymore. Maybe I should just keep silent and accept my loneliness. How ironic life is sometimes. I would like to forget everything and forget my own thoughts. Maybe that would make it easier. I try to come back to reality and stop this pain that I feel because, no matter how crazy I might be turning, that it still is an illusion. I just need the strength to do it. I know I can do it, because many times in life I had to be strong, and I was. How else would I have made it so far? But now, it feels different. Maybe God is testing my will. But what would be my purpose if I couldn�t love him anymore? In my loneliness, there is that �something� that helps me go on. The energy that woke me up from feeling old and spent is worth more than feeling that I belong to the world. His breath gives me life, his desire becomes my desire. I long to hear his voice whispering �I love you� into my ear, just as he said in his messages to me so many times. But maybe he�s forgotten all about me already. I will not give him up even if they forced him away from me. I accept that the age difference is insurmountable in the real world, but love is more than a physical presence, a body that has gone through more stages in life than another. Maybe he only feels respect for me, but even that may mean that he represses something deeper, something sweeter. I feel that I should be patient. I have nothing to lose, when the end is so near. After all, every tree will bloom again and his songs will go on. Life is so beautiful! Messages, messages, messages... One of the last one he sent was �you were my sister, my friend, my mother, my lover, and when you left you took my heart away�. How much I wished this message to be for me! But I was wrong... My idol, I would give you all that I have, my love, my soul, my whole being if you only asked it of me. I would love to seduce you but I have no means to do it. How would you feel if you saw me? I have a big heart, I have so much to give, but to the world, these are not worth much. Are they worth anything to you? What would a pure, disinterested love be worth to you? Sweet dreaming, what would I do without dreaming? I would be so much closer to the end. My idol appeared on TV recently, in a live interview. I had prayed to God for a miracle, and now it finally happened! His warm voice first caught my attention, a voice I would recognize in a thousand. I could not believe my eyes. But more than his songs, his presence was truly entrancing. I prayed I would never wake up from this dream. I wanted him so much, more and more with every minute, and as strange as this may sound, this was because he, also, could see me. Somehow, I don�t know how, I am being watched through live television. He looked at me, and our eyes finally met. Awkward at first, tentative, but filled with desire. We smiled at each other, but he was restrained, for fear that the others would notice. The show went on for two hours, and we kept looking into each other�s eyes, from a distance, sometimes, and from up close when the camera would allow it. His smile was sad, while mine was melancholic, because we both knew we could not be together, truly be together, or even say a few words to each other. When he sang, four girls danced around him and I felt jealous for their closeness to him. Had I been that close to him, I would have rushed to embrace him, to tell him how much I had missed him. But I had to accept that all he could give me were his eyes and his sweet smile. I thanked God for the few moments of bliss that I had, and I felt ready to face life again. But now I want him so much more, by my side, forever. I saw a hidden sadness in his eyes, even though he was trying to put on a good face. A while ago, I had asked in one of my messages for a shoulder to cry on. How much I longed for him to ask me the same thing! I would like to help him, to take his sadness away. But I will never be able to say �I love you� to his face. I can only whisper it, from my soul to his. They must not hear me. They must not hear us. Why is such a beautiful thing forbidden to us? Of course, the best things in life are forbidden. Sometimes the only choice when you see how impossible love can be is to think of death. Because, indeed, I will take this love to the grave with me. I don�t want death to come too soon though, because I want a few more moments with him, a few more smiles between us, even if it is through the cold TV screen. I wake up in the morning and I think of him, and I am sure he also thinks of me. How ironic that the greatest love of my life is a boy, barely a man, whom I will never see in person. But love has no law, no boundary, no age. Love is that �something� that fills a void, beyond any prejudice, so that we always are tempted to do those things that the world will frown at. People can be so heartless, which is why I ended up alone in my twilight. I go to church, but I am no nun. I have needs, I have feelings, why do they want me to turn to stone? At 74 I am still alive, even though they want to see my mind as old as they believe that I am. But love gives me new blood, hot blood that I have to keep hidden, for fear that they will call me crazy. They would not understand. I feel as if I am constantly drunk and I have to walk a straight line so that they wouldn�t notice. Are there rules to how to be unhappy? If so, I have to learn them, and be inconspicuous about it, as other people probably do. But when you are young, you can carry it better, because the hope always remains alive. I, however, cannot go down easy, because those rules don�t apply to me any longer. My soul is in agony, and I cannot look into a future where the agony will have gone away. To me, this love must carry me over to the other side, and at least I will know that I was alive when the last breaths were taken. But I don�t want that to come so soon. Maybe that was my mistake, to think of him as my secret lover, instead of my idol. But I cannot go back on my feelings: it is too late now. I would have to sacrifice too much. Then, what is left for me is to carry this sweet burden to the end. If there is an end. This road is long, and I am tired. I need to rest a while, for I don�t know any longer where I�m going. How could I find out how you feel about me, my dear boy? Do you hate me, or do you love me? That you don�t want me in your life, I understand, but I thought at least you did feel something. Only you could bring light to my confusion. Even those messages that I thought were for me, I�m not so certain anymore whom they were meant for. Your silence is heavy. You now only exist in my heart. There are so many messages now, and I can only pick one and make it mine: �I will be back soon and we can be together again�. I wish it to be mine, but is it? I feel so sad. So abandoned. My love is such a painful secret to carry in silence, since there is nobody to hear me cry. I cannot tell anybody. Can I force you to tell me you love me? Maybe you already have. It may be an impossibility, but love always believes that anything is possible. Just the other day I saw a message saying �I love you, secret love of mine�. That, I think, was for me. Whose love could be a bigger secret? It made me feel a little better. When I finally saw him on TV, I wanted to dance to his music, but I knew they were watching, because it was a live show, so I refrained. After the song, he sat down and looked at me with so much sadness as if he wanted to tell me something. He looked thinner, maybe he was ill, but who can tell me what he is going through? I could not comfort him, and I had to watch him go away. What is happening to him? To us? In another show he asked me �what do you want from me?� and I told him �I only want you�. He shook his head that it couldn�t be done. But I cannot accept this rejection. It is not him who decrees it, but the others who don't want us to be together. In his last album, this song, I believe, was written for me: The rain covers my longing tears It covers our fears The rain that brings fire
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