Love of the Remover

Love alters not when its alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
-Shakespeare

Your heartaches are within his purview because you put them there. Maybe your narratives never considered the span of his sight. Or you deliberated but succeeded only in underestimating him.

Either way, he would that you didn't show your heart. You don't know him. As you see him, he is merely a blurred copy of his true likeness. As you hear him, he is only a muted version of his voice.

Yet you confided. His hands have wrought more ill than his face betrays. His tongue much more so. Measuring the length of his words and hearing its cadence, you thought there was no silence in him. You drank of his eyes too little to understand.

He is not to be trusted. He told you so himself. He has worn many faces before for both necessity and game. He has used myriad tongues. And he loved you in a way you never imagined a woman could be so broodingly worshipped. So he told you not to trust him with your secrets.

He loved you. So he tried to spare you his love.

But you poured them on, your secrets, your pain. You tried to fashion him to be the company of your misery. But he was bludgeoning himself to be the music you are bound to face. His forgery surpassed yours and, despite himself, he had to curse you with his dark love. Because of himself, he drew you to his dark love.

You should have kept your distance as he cautioned. You did not know him. For once, he was thoroughly honest when he said goodbye was best. You turned the deaf ear, believing only the best in him, your confidante-prospect.

And if he was flawed, you would change him. Such misery. Such ego.

Didn't you know? Friends and lovers broke themselves on him like waves on an ebon rock. They didn't know. Unsuspecting, they would reveal their syories to him. He would know however that the mere fact you were sharing your "joy" meant you weren't blissful. You were trying to convince yourself you were.

He saw through ruses men create for themselves until even they would believe their own deception. And if you said you were happy, he'd know you were lying.

But there was always something. Imperfection in the alloy of souls. Something. How about a difference of opinion between friends? Or a difference in religion between lovers. Or a difference of lovers of the lovers. Something. Either a difference or a sameness.

He was both wolf and bloodhound. He would know the smell of sickening sameness. How the routines you shared bred only boredom. How you walked the same pace and never really fought. He read ennui even beneath webs of denials. Same favorite color. Same sitcom. Same job. Same making-out procedures going-in-circles-and-circles ad infinitum.

You would unknowingly present him your cycles and he would show you with a word or gesture how vicious it was. How you had to take control. How it had to be broken somehow and how you-can't-wait-for-him-to-do-it-can-you?

Difference and sameness were akin to him. They were causes of destruction. Variation was violence, the-sameness was decay.

Without love or remorse he'd break hearts. Black rock as he was to sparkling gay foamy waves. And more terrible, he could crush without hate. It was just him. Seduce and destroy.

He wasn't touchy-feely as you thought him to be. Not the sensitive guy with his advice to ailing friends. He was the remover. He would dismiss all those years you guys loved each other by merely stating the obvious: you just wanted to believe you did. All that time! All those months lovers counted (even coining words like monthsary or buwanniversary). All of the family and friends they had to meet and endure. All the habits each had to put up with. All their noises. All shared moments and damn irritating silences! All those gifts, letters, text messages, marathon phone calls. All those receipts of dates saved, meticulously sorted and pasted on a special scrapbook. Scrap.

The remover was not a stone causing small ripples as they thought. They were the ripples. His unassuming veneer, that fake humility, that dishevelled look, those corny jokes? Those were not pebbles. He was the black rock. Waves broke themselves upon his hideous face.

And you, beloved one, what do you suppose is in store for you? You had your chance to run. So many times he gave them to you, little portals of escape. Little rabbit-holes out his wonderland. Fairydust to fly from neverland. He almost pushed you out at times. His love however could not be stronger than what-he-was.

And he could not click those ruby-red shoes for you.

Now your narratives are within his hearing. Your heartaches have color in his eyes. Your pain is in his mind. Your misery, he has thoroughly espoused. There is no escape now, no shelter, no shell.

The remover. He is the music you will face, sooner or later. The music of waves breaking on a rock.