Hollow Distortion

I've been waving my arms around, lighting fires, and sending up flares, but I'm not on his radar. I haven't been on "his" radar for more than a decade. My true love remains elusive.

I am weary from this endeavour. This endeavour seems to have a grudge against me. I've tried different paths, time after time and full of hope, but these paths always end. Something always barricades the way - thick scrub and fallen branches, mostly, occasionally snakes. Hope hasn't ended, though, not quite. But it also grows weary.

Each year without a companion is getting harder. The clichés amass; empty spaces, absent embraces, soundless conversation, untouched flesh. The aching loneliness is paralysing and inescapable. I feel as though I am being slowly dissolved by a caustic substance, one which I can neither neutralize nor remove. I'm beginning to die.

I've sometimes thought, if I had magic powers, would I use them to influence a situation. And I've always thought 'no' - don't mess with nature. But, as the years grow longer, I'm edging closer and closer to 'yes' - let nature be damned.

I know that finding a partner is not a panacea. All my sufferings will not miraculously disappear with a kiss. There are other things complicit in creating the caustic substance, including ex-partners. I don't know if existence without caustic substance is possible. My belief (hope) is that there are ways of containing, even diminishing, the substance, and lessening its damage, and that one of these ways is companionship.