Hushed

Peace of mind or a mind in pieces. A piece meal way of being peaceful. They say ignorance is bliss. I disagree. I think that void is what eats us all up on the inside. You must fill it. With whatever you choose.

Someone asked me a question the other day: "What is your first love?" I was surprised at how promptly I answered : "books". I was also surprised at how relieved I felt that the question hadn't been "Who was your first love?"

On stone benches beneath leafy trees, on shadowy stairwells and sometimes inside empty classrooms is where it all began... The only love affair that I am proud of. There was commitment to a fault and loyalty to none. As I devoured hungrily what they had to offer they took from the right to shape my dreams, my love, my life. Each and every sentence that was written was for me and each and every time I was smitten with how selfish I was allowed to be. There were sentences I wanted to say and hear and found myself whispering in imagined conversations. There were meanings of love that I had been looking for my entire life and that I eventually found on turning a page...

__________________________________________________________

They were probably words she remembered from a different life time. Or perhaps she had found them in the various rooms of her head. There was a certain disgrace in her many desires and she had many useless and futile battles with herself and them. The day she met him the words came tumbling out. He was wonderfully kind.