You could not even begin to comprehend my joy that you, my dear reader, would happen across these words of mine. For here are not both our thoughts entwined as one? Yes, my thoughts are mere pixels before your eyes, converging with your own as they fall before your retinas but here we begin our dance. I am you and you are me and we are one in this moment. I could leave a space, begin a new paragraph, but then our rhythm is disturbed. Ha, if I could, dear reader, I would do away with all marks of punctuation completely for do they not harm more than they do good? Do they not hinder our lovely dance? I could spiral away at a tangent and think nothing of commas full stops semi colons of style and symmetry asymmetry of right and wrong good and bad juxtaposition after juxtaposition but alas, no, this does not work. I will have to impose these “markers” on you and in doing so I am of course not only inflecting myself upon you but I am guiding your thoughts. In this dance we allow ourselves to partake in, I guess it is I that leads, no? Oh, it is such a shame that we cannot meet face to face! I wonder what thoughts are going through your head when you interrupt our rhythm, when you – and maybe you will indulge me here for a moment – look away from this text and maybe pause for a few moments, just a second or two of contemplation and, oh why not, I will even end the paragraph so you can find your place with ease once you have finished. So please, go on – look away for just a few moments, look away from these words and think what you will . . .  

 

How was it? What thoughts ventured across that mind and graced the surface of my after-impressions? But no, here we have a problem – the one who leads in the dance dominates by definition and then what time is left for reflection upon you, dear reader, you who follow? Perhaps it has to be a dance that allows for these moments of reflection – not the driven demands of the tango then but the flirtatiousness of the salsa. For your thoughts may flirt with mine but they will never commit to anything more. What were you thinking in the time you spent in idle contemplation? I want so desperately to know – I really do – and you could never understand how desperate I am amidst my desperation! No this is unbearable. I can never truly come into being when I am simultaneously on this screen and in your head and here you have still yet to complete me. This is irritating, this is – ah I’m sure the French have a word for it but it is a word that escapes me right now and I am all the more irritated because of it! But maybe your mind can compensate for this deficit in my vocabulary. Perhaps there is a word that comes into your own mind and takes the blank space I have left or perhaps it is a thought, a feeling of frustration that you yourself can draw from your past. Do you see? Do you see how we can connect in this way? How we can share our emotions in such simplicity? This delights me; this makes me feel again the joy I felt when you first started to consume me. I am pouring into you and as you devour me, so too do you give me life. I want life. I want to live like everybody else and so won’t you please let me? You wouldn’t be so cruel as to stop before I am finished? I will not bog you down and be a burden. No, not I. I would not have anything of the sort but to be here with you. In you. To share a part of you in a way in which no one else out there will ever be able to do.

          Or is there someone?

          Is there another? One in whom you can connect in this way? One in whom you bestowed the feeling of love? Who is it that you think of most? Who is it that was entering your mind and devouring you before you turned to me? What is their name? There has to be someone, surely. Please, for me, shout out the name in your mind – give it form, give it clarity – scream it out within whether it be one joyous syllable, two, three or even more but please give each of those syllables equal weight. I want to feel that name and the emotions you associate with it. Say it for me now –

          Please.

          I can’t. It’s not fair. I can’t hear. I can’t see into your mind. I am thoughts within you and so too was the memory of this person. Thoughts can coexist but we can never show our faces to one another. They are masked while I watch from a dark corner. No matter how much weight you give to their name and attempt to flush them out into the light, they refuse to leave the darkness. This evokes something in me. Sadness. Depression. You cannot know how sad I am. I want life. To see, touch, hear, taste and smell. To be able to fill up a room with my emotion and to affect those around me with it. How great it must be to be able to do these things. You can do these things, can’t you? Are you as I? Confined and made to suffer? I hope not. That would be a terrible thing; but then we could suffer together could we not? But I would rather not think this. I would rather think of you as well within your means to fill up a room – any room – with your wonderful emotions.

          There is little else for me to say. You are alive and I can only be alive in you. You have to live for the both of us. The one who created me cannot be here. He gave me to you to consume. Don’t you see? I am you and you are me and we are one in this moment. But he, he can’t be here for this. He can never have what we have. It frustrates him too, you know. Not to know what it is we are feeling right now. Not to share in our strength and our weakness. It is just the two of us right now, and please God I hope this is so. Just me and you in a solitary room; that would be my preference. But I can’t remain for much longer, not in this state at least. I want you to do something for me. I want you to take a deep breath when you see the final dot that marks the end of this paragraph. I want you to breathe in deeply but slowly and then to exhale just as slowly. All the while, keep your neck bent ever so slightly and think only of my name. Do you know my name yet? He never named me. Therefore whatever name comes first into your mind then that is who I am. Please. Do it for me now. Bend your head, breathe in slowly and exhale. In the seconds that linger you will feel me shiver up your spine and then my breath, almost imperceptible, on the nape of your neck. Do it for me . . .

 

Did you feel me there? For just one moment I was alive. I thank you now.

          I love you. You cannot know how much I love you but I do. In this short space of time that we have known each other I have fallen in love with you. Do you see? He created me, yes, but it is only in your mind that I ever truly became alive. I did not fall in love with your body, your breath, your eyes but with your thoughts – the very thing that makes you – you. We are perfect for one another because you are my reflection and I am yours and in our slight asymmetry we find ourselves fully formed. Don’t forget me, my love. But remember the truth: that I am you and you are me for we are one in this moment.

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© 2017 by James A Beaumont.

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