For you

     During the last moths I have thought a lot about our life. I know that you consider it yours and mine, but for me it is ours. Maybe, the part of it which is bound to leave with you is its best part. Sometimes I even think that it’s only because of you that I still have something inside of me, allowing me to create. But then I remember that I can’t love really strongly and suffer really deeply. I love strictly to the point, where it does not interfere with my plans, and suffer only to the point, where I can write about it.
     Why care about people? They would not understand anyway. They will never understand. You worry too much about what other members of your society think. They won’t think anything good in any case. To be oneself is nowadays a luxury very few people can afford. So let us leave middlebrows their most sophisticated pleasure – gossiping about their neighbors.
     For everything that I have done, I’ll have to pay its price. I know. I’ll pay. I regret only one thing – I won’t feel your touches anymore, won’t hear you moan with pleasure. and won’t be able to fall asleep with my head on your shoulder. I regret I won’t be able to kiss you like it was the only time, so that the taste of your skin stays on my lips. When I think about it, dragging grief enters my heart. Even now.
     Memories are shatters one always sets foot on. But it’s only the good that we remember constantly. That’s why it seems that things used to be brighter, happier. All these moments one wants to keep and multiply! That’s exactly where the betrayal of our memory lies.
     Every night I fought the temptation of hearing your voice. And there was nothing        I could do with it. Whatever I did, wherever I was, thoughts about you broke through my own. But it stopped with time. And there’s no way to explain why. To be more correct, it will take too much time. Moreover, there’s no need to explain anything. You don’t want that. You want to call when you need to get it off your chest, promise to come and fail to do it, find more convenient variants of amorousness, remind about yourself when I already start to forget…even say that you love me. In a way convenient for you. Too strong to forget, too weak to fight for. On the other hand, does it make any difference? Even if you have never loved me, you loved me a little more than the others.
     Children build a lot of little Easter cakes in a sand-pit: once they build one big cake, they see that it breaks down because of an incautious movement or a gust of wind. In the same way we are afraid to love only one man, but for real, preferring to “love” those who won’t sting us too strong. Every romance is like a one genre movie –actors and special effects change, but the plot and the general conception repeat each and every time. There will always be someone younger and more beautiful, as well as someone richer and more influential. And we know what to be like, what to do and what to say… Oh, words! The most fake thing in the world! Sometimes I say the words meant for you to others. I must say them to someone…You have always waited patiently for me to get enough of it. Or for another “him” to get enough of it. All my enamourments are like the time I have not spent with you, not your hands holding me, not your lips kissing me. It’s like you and me, only with others. Like my life without me.
     You were the only one I could not do without. I’m about to write: “not because you are better, but…”. However, exactly because of that. Because you are. Better than all of them put together and each of them taken separately. For me personally. They can hurt my ego, sting my pride, spice up my vanity, but my heart is safe and sound, as it always stays by me.
      Saying there’s nothing left would be a lie – sometimes this dull nagging pain torments me. The burden of the past still weighs on me. When I think of us, my legs are still rubbery. But there are dozens of people around, who have let their lives go down the drain, and think that it’s the way it has to be. One may walk towards the light at the end of the tunnel, or may settle in it. That’s the way most middlebrows do. While I want – have always wanted – to get to the limit of my capabilities, and probably, even to greatness. It’s immodest and laughable a bit. But that’s exactly what separates us. Obstacles are inside, not outside. You knew that once we are together, everything would end – both my inspiration, and my love. We both knew it. My life does not belong to me. It has never done.
      Many years ago you said that man is made for family. It’s not true. Man is made for the rest of mankind, for the whole world. And for history. The hardest obstacle on my way was the temptation of finding simple, day-to-day happiness. But I overcame it too.
      We let something go to keep something else, something more important. For no love intoxication compares to pure joy of satisfied vanity. Maybe, I will be lucky and realize my plans. Or maybe, no. As a very clever friend of mine says, “poets and philosophers of movements, similar to my view of life, end up badly and approximately in the same way”. Maybe, I’ll lead a wretched, dismal existence, like thousands of Russians, trudging along at low positions or some higher posts in large or small organizations. Or maybe, I’ll leave my country and write “accusatory” articles “against the regime” (whatever it is) to the delight of western capitalists, and keeping the “longing for Russian birches” inside. I don’t know which turn my life takes, but that’s what’s so good about it. And as for yours – I can map it all out for years to come. That’s all the difference. I have not given up to life – have not let myself drown in the daily reality. Fighting for you means becoming a part of the provincial philistine world that I despise.
      What do I have left, but polished memories and unedited texts? A trinket with your name on it which I have always forgotten to give to you. And a timetable of buses – when needed, I did not take any of them.
      I said that you made your own choice. But I paltered with truth – it was my choice as well. I don’t know if I acted right then. I will never know that. But I’ve learnt something else. Not about you, but about myself: I do not live in accordance with the principles I write about, the ones I advocate. What holds us? The fear of condemnation, the fear of change, the fear of being rejected. Indeed, as Bulgakov wrote, cowardice is the worst vice of humankind.
     I do not ask to never call or write to me, to never come. I do not deliver any ultimatum. One does it, when afraid to lose. I’m not afraid of anything anymore.
      Call me, when you want to be with me to the rest of your days. Call me when you inner loneliness, which only I could soothe, becomes unbearable. Call me when you love me to the extent of being able to sacrifice everything. And for such love I will ruin another’s life and risk my own. For such love is real. And I fight for its right. For love is a flight, not chains. Loving is not about the desire to possess someone, but to set him free.
      There are two ways one can spoil his life – either to break down or to fade into the world around – and I’m not going to explore any of them. And I never was. Even if we were together, I would still behave the way I did and do what I did. One can tame the beast inside only by letting it out from time to time.
They tell us: “You need to forget it and live on”. That’s the way we live. We live on, but without forgetting”. I can’t escape the feeling that it’s all meant for the beautiful memories. But I don’t want to turn you into a memory.
      I’m just trying to catch an elusory moment of love before it’s gone forever.