...But really, the most fascinating thing about it all is the sheer desire behind it. It was hardly just a want: one of those impassioned lusts that come and go much like our movie star crushes or food cravings. No, this stood different from any feeling he'd experienced in his brief but storied lifetime. This was a primal exigency, a divine compulsion. Not so much for her, although the desire shouldn't at all be underestimated.

Rather, it was the newness of her essence of reality that was so intriguing. You see, there was much that he had experienced in this world and many people he had encountered. Some flighty, some brilliant, some infinitely nervous. He'd seen just about every spectrum of sanity and temperament and sexual orientation; been the object of want by many and wanted exponentially more himself. He had come to a point in his life where, young though he was, he felt as if he had seen and felt just about everything there was to see and feel in this world, save the sweet release of death. She, however... was something else entirely. A raven in a flock of black vultures. A lit candle in a room smothered with grey darkness. A declamatory statement in poetic stanzas dripping with metaphor.

At first, she almost seemed too perfect. He could go on about her undeniably beautiful qualities: the way her locks swayed ever so gently when she walked, the way she laughed with the fervor of a drunk man but the care of a charming princess. Especially the way she looked at the world when she thought nobody else was watching... always with a rabid curiosity and a penchant for mystery. Anyone that took the time to pay attention to her in her moments of self contemplation would universally notice the half-smirk permanently affixed on her countenance. It was as if she wielded a secret; a secret that only she knew about people and places and reality; a secret that she was more than happy to keep all to herself. And this secret got her through the tough days of pain that seemed too much to bear, and pushed her through the mornings when she didn't want to wake up, and stemmed the tears on the nights where she couldn't face the world and its burdens anymore. It was a secret just about everyone wanted subconsciously, and none more than him, as it was one of the pieces to the puzzle of her psyche.

But what perhaps intrigued him the most was her darker side. The side known only by her closest friends and those lucky enough to have once won her heart--and those callous enough to break it. The side that, inevitably, seemed to drive anyone she cared about away. Friends, family, lovers, you name it. There weren't many who truly understood her for what she was and not who she had to be, and even fewer that accepted her for it. For all the obviousness of the half-smirk on her face, it was easy to overlook the more subtle agony seated within her eyes. Panic and distress were constants, but she was too proud to admit it. She was always so proud. Behind the grins and the elegant laughter, those who took the time to look more closely saw a girl who needed someone. She'd fight tooth and nail if she had to go it alone, but would far rather have someone by her side who needed her like she needed him. Somebody that finally, for once, saw in her what nobody else had seen. Appreciated her for who she was and loved her even more for what she wasn't.

Indeed, it was this girl that perfected his dreams and shattered his nightmares. Indeed, she was his perfection incarnate. Not only did she embody his ideal woman (which happens to be starkly different from "the"  ideal woman), she revealed to him a slew of new qualities that he never realized he wanted, and qualities that he never knew he needed. Never before had he met a woman who universally inspired such intense levels of intrigue, suspense, and affection. Any antiquated notion of love and passion was all but out the window with her. He had stepped on a new level of comfort and assuredness and certainty that indeed... he had found the one. And whether or not he could win her over and be the significant other that she needed, or fill the void in her heart that he wanted so desperately to fill and be a part of... he knew that he could walk away with at least one victory. Self-enlightenment. In the midst of this chaos, he took comfort in that he could walk away with renewed standards and a revived faith in humanity and the opposite sex. A revived faith in love.

So no, this wasn't an affection that would come and go with the tides and teenage whims of the 90's. Not at all. This feeling of love without abandon had taken him prisoner, for better or worse... and, quite frankly, he was beginning to develop Stockholm Syndrome.

The sheer desire behind it all was the most fascinating thing.

I woke up in a daze; the kind where reality only tiptoes into your dreamworld and it's an awkward merge of fantasy and tangibles. Velvet curtains, everywhere. A decent view of the inner city, from what little I glimpsed of it. I had no recollection of anything, it seemed; no memory of the night before, or even the week, really.

I glanced at the dame getting dressed next to me. She seemed distressed; worried, as if her greatest fear had finally caught up to her, despite months of resistance. Futile, futile resistance. She refused to make eye contact with me.I started to regain a foothold on my senses; remembering the little things. Who this woman was, how I ran into her on the street and despite the ghastly height differential and social disparity we were all smiles. The chemistry was remarkable, instant. We were strangers, but we conversed like brother and sister. As if we had grown up together, knowing the ins and outs of the other's personality better, at times, than we knew our own. And yet, somehow this made her all the more mysterious. Nobody could be so... clinically amiable.

And yet, she still wouldn't look at me.

Is this what love felt like? Feels like? A hopeless swath of abstraction and love blur and taboo feelings? To wonder about a person, fantasize not about their body, but their very soul? To know that somehow, her absence from your life would end yours in a quiet blaze of indignation and regret?I'm not sure you should be here anymore, she said. My, she looked lovely when she was flustered and distraught. She looked lovely with any emotion, really. "You should leave." she continued to talk at her dresser while getting changed, as if reliving a memory out loud.

Slowly, I stood to my feet and closed my fingers around the door handle. I turned back, and set my eyes on hers. She was still staring at her dresser, tears welling in her eyes. Perhaps I was her memory, her fantasy, and it took a wild night of passion and alcohol and twisted bodies for her to shake herself back to reality. The door opened, seemingly of its own accord.

Maybe I'll run into her again, I thought.

total rant mode. my apologies for the impossibly long sentences and the lack of capitalization. but those of you who at least semi-regularly read my writing are used to the first one.

people start to annoy me after a while.

it's always about the games. some girl likes a boy so they'll try and talk to them less and make the boy "chase" the girl or some stupid bull. some girl doesn't want to talk to a boy at all so they'll try and talk to them less and the boy ends up "chasing" the girl or some stupid bull and the girl gets mad and calls him a creeper and a stalker and wants him to get out of his life or something ridiculous.

obviously guys play their own games too. oftentimes we're actually normal people until the very moment you talk to us and our words start to get all jumbled up because there's all this stuff we want to say but we're scared you won't be receptive to any of it and so we stop saying what we want to say in the middle of our sentences and it's all just a big mess and you end up just thinking we're weird. and a lot of times when we do get the right words out and say what we mean we don't say it right or we offend the girl trying to make a sincere compliment and then they still think we're weird; if we're lucky.

even non-relationship dynamics are ridiculous. people are so passive-aggressive it makes me sick. we talk so, SO much trash on other people, and we turn around and are nice whenever those people come around. i get that you should treat everyone nicely and i know that's important but there are people that just go about it the wrong way. like, people who maintain a steady dislike, even vitriol towards a certain subset of people, whether it's by race or personality type or social group or whatever, but then put on their ridiculously nice face for them anyway when they're around. that stuff makes me sick, you know? I mean i honestly think you should open yourself a bit and just find the good in people and get to a point where you don't have to feel like you're FORCING yourself out of NECESSITY to be nice to someone. people are people just like you and you should be nice to them because they're people.

but you know what, maybe i'm wrong. the sick thing is that sometimes we have to treat people nicely that we really don't like. you know, those people that you mention something, even jokingly, that they're bad at or that they're weird about and they stonewall or get defensive and yell at you or just give you some death glare or something. sometimes people take stuff so effing personally and really cannot grasp the concept that there are things you can improve on as a human being and you have to just suck it up and be nice to them regardless of whether they deserve it. i wish people wouldn't be that way.

the kicker here is that nobody is a straight up bitch anymore. you know those girls that tell you your shirt is disgusting and whywouldyoueverwearthatinpublic and the guys that push you around and stuff just because they can. at least, not in my experience. they don't exist; not like they used to. and really it kind of almost sickens me, because ironically the world hasn't gotten any nicer. any close look at the people around you can tell you that. what the world HAS turned into is this sick metapsyche with unnatural concerns about people liking you and social approval. in a way we're smarter that way, but it's made us less real; less straightforward.

we grow up as kids saying exactly what's on our mind, and mom tells you that "it's not okay to point out that that lady is pregnant" and we shut up. we pipe that Aunt Julie has gotten "a lot bigger" since last Christmas and we get a slap on the wrist and we shut up. so over our formative years we start to develop a filter for what we say. we find truth and manipulate it so that we at least half mean what we say, so we don't actually lie. and then we lie, saying that it was justified because now that person's happy and I'm happy and how can that possibly be a bad thing. and all of a sudden the ratio of things coming out of our mouth that we mean vs not mean is totally skewed in the wrong direction, and it gets hard to tell what you really feel anymore, you've been using the filter for so long.

we are so wrapped up in social convention and "manners" and being "polite" and "well-behaved" that I think we lose a sense of self to it. we get told saying how we really feel is wrong, because it makes other people unhappy. we get told how we are supposed to feel. and guess what? it doesn't matter anymore what we feel, because it's usually wrong anyway. what DOES matter is how other people feel about US, and that dictates our actions. is that right?

i'm not sure if any of this made sense to anyone else, but i'm just tired of seeing people like this, and seeing myself as this person every so often.

it wears me out.