The Extent of Love

Cephissus, the Greek river god, was possessed by Liriope, a Boeotian naiad. Her beaut was such that Cephissus found himself bedevilled and exiled from anything besides. Through his godly eminence, Cephissus by and by made Liriope heavy with a child… a son… named Narcissus…

Narcissus possessed a comeliness surpassing his mother. Warned by a blind seer, Liriope hid all the mirrors for if Narcissus would witness his own beauty he would be doomed for life. His beauty would consume him.

Many humble hearts were bewitched by Narcissus, many pined for him and yearned for a single glimpse. One day Ameinias, his neighbour, could quell his love no more and asked Narcissus to be his lover. Narcissus said not a single word, nor did he flinch, he plainly walked away and sent Ameinias a dagger wrapped in cloth… Ameinias got the message… heart rendered and dolorous, with that dagger he took his own life…

A few days heretofore, my sweet love and I were discussing about her project dedicated to homosexuality and morality. Our minds were submissively trapped betwixt choosing a moral objection to homosexuality and the definition of morality itself.

Or perhaps homosexuality and the true meaning of it. If a man can be bold enough to call himself truly heterosexual, then that man is a fool or mayhaps his intentions of intimate succour is plainly carnal.

Red finds himself enjoying the company of Blue, they have been best friends for vaguely a year now. Red handpicks his mother’s best cookies and gives it to Blue and Blue always saves a seat for Red away from the splinters of rain rupturing on the windowpane. A certain assured smile of gaiety is drawn upon Red’s face whenever Blue trots down the spiralling stairways of his home.

This one day, after a long tiring session of hide and seek, Blue slept off in Red’s arms. In that very moment, when phenomenons froze and occurrences of anything else but that moment came to a halt, Red was met with an unfamiliar yet familiar feeling of love, he leaned and kissed Blue on the lips… soft quivering lips swamped with slumber, did nothing but twitched to an expression which Red believes to be a smile…

30 years later, Red is a father of two after being unsuccessfully married, twice. Every night Red makes love to his young wife, looks upon her charming face sweating and pumping during the coitus, and never wishes Blue to there in her place. But on days, when venereal voracity is overpowered by a vim of veneration and when his wife sleeps so tenderly in his lap looking ever so serene… He wishes… and no matter how much it torments him he wishes… Blue was there…

Amor platonicus… Platonic Love… a love devoid of everything erotic. Perhaps devoid is a strong word, suggestive of ‘lacking’. I understand platonic love is free of lascivious exuberance, free of physique, free of bodily orgasm. It is like fornication on ethereal grounds where you are neither the dominator nor the dominated, neither male nor female. An orgasm of mind, the ecstasy is unparalleled and there you lie in a bond eternal.

Be it said here that I do not hold a loathing for carnal activities in fact I believe true platonic love leads to it. Carnality is discovery of body, and love is discovery of soul.

Then love is nothing sexual and it is purely homos… which in Greek deciphers to ‘being same’… you are in love when you are in state of homos… Heterosexual coming from heteros (‘being different’) and sexual, plainly implies being sexually attracted to difference of body as per my beliefs… but then you may be heteros by gender but always homos by the mind to truly find love…

Thus your sexuality may be heteros but your soul is homos… you search, hunt and pursue to find a soulmate, one who would mate with your soul and not with your body. A person who is the same as you, same thoughts as yours, same criterions and sub-criterions as yours... homos… Lo and behold, all this while you search for homosexuality, a platonic establishment for only then life seems fulfilled. And if the Gods were to play a mockery, they would infatuate us with our own self till time’s end… and then laugh at our miseries…

This is but tip of the iceberg of all the thoughts dancing in juxtapose inside my head. Perhaps words cannot define love this easily, or perhaps sexuality is just a hedonic aspect of love. I believe I am a small critter who wishes to cross a mountain, with limited cognizance and knowledge and I dread the attainment of such knowledge would only consume me…

After Ameinias’ passing, Narcissus once went to hunt, thereby catching a deer’s eye by the arrowhead. Whence deeply involved in the ordeal of skinning the deer by the spring, he caught a glimpse of himself in the clear spring water. Big eyed Narcissus glared long and deep at his own image, beguiled by his own beaut. Then tears of grief rain down his cheeks, for he recalled how smitten was Ameinias with his splendour and how with such disdain Narcissus had wrapped a dagger in a cloth.

Narcissus wept for hours, and hours enamoured by his beauty shouting “I love you, I love you” but the face in the water made no sound… Ameinias made no sound… Narcissus at length died there, his once beautiful countenance lay twisted and contorted…

Such is… the extent of love…