The Art of Play: Immersing in Character and Perspective

Do you know the pain of loving you? Loving someone who will never love me back. I’ve tried, everything. I am burning with the love I have for you, I am in heaven and hell, I am chained with thoughts of you, I can’t breathe, you’re weighing on me, and I drown. I drown and float to the bottom of this darkness, I see nothing, hear nothing, sense nothing. Nothing but you. It’s all I’ve ever wanted, I will die here. Gladly, I will die here. I sacrifice myself to your love. I open my chest, take out my heart and give it to you. Please have it, it’s the only thing I have to offer. It carries all I could not physically. Does it still beat? Is it still surging with blood? You are the reason it beats, it carries life inside, for you. I am bleeding, the source of my being spilling out in long winding rivers, reaching to you. I scream. I call your name. It soothes me, anchors me, calms me when nothing can. I love you so much I will kill myself for you. You don’t even have to ask. I know you hate me. I hate me too. I hate that I love you.

I was prepared for the storm after your death, expected anger, assumed grief. I did not think it would instead, feel like this. Like nothing. Nothing for hours and days and weeks. You’re still in my waking nightmare. I see you, us, together. And when I open my eyes, all I see is nothing. There is nothing in this house, no longer a home, it is as distant to me as a hotel. I’ve had a life of being alone before, why does it feel so foreign now? I hesitate at the door of this new beginning, I wait, for the door that closed behind me to open up, and for you to walk through it, carrying a smile that could melt the galaxy, light it aflame. I stand in the middle, unable to cross the threshold. I will wait an eternity, for you to come back to me.

Please don’t look at me like that. Like there is softness in your eyes, when the light grazes, aperture changes, green to intense jade. It is the field I long to run in. It is home when I don't know where I belong. Have you looked at another like this? Like a faraway treasure you want to hold forever. Did she have your heart? Did she share your thoughts? Did she say your name on her lips, as easy as the ending breath of a kiss? I am delusional, I must be. I am too idle, my mind wanders, dances on the wind while my hands feign interest. This house of two. I smell like you, you smell like me, we eat the same food, share the same air. How long can this continue before one of us realizes? It will be too late then, I will have already fallen in love. So please, don’t look at me like that.

Before I write, I walk. And I get lost. So very lost. I’m walking in a circle in my living room, my bedroom, the fire escape, the neighborhood, the bathroom, in the bathtub, wherever. But I’m not seeing it anymore. It wouldn’t be right to say that I’m the character, simply because the character isn’t me. And I’m not them. I get lost in them and their story. I’m seeing a bedroom when I’m in the shower, sunshine shining on a person walking with me as I stroll through the neighborhood at night. I see a battle in my bedroom and a court in my living room. My heart actually beats faster, my breath comes up short, and there is a clench in my stomach and sweat on my brow that’s purely mental.