Diaspora of A Small Nation

“I could have loved you” one said to the other as they sat on the River bank.

“How so” said the other.

“I could have held you as you never have been before” said the former “ I know you are searching for some piece of your soul, you fill it with triviality but I can provide that real security, that missing puzzle piece, the forgotten words you find yourself searching for on restless nights”.

“Really?” The other replied “perhaps we should have met in some earlier form of life, before things got so very complicated”.

“I could still love you” the former replied.

“You know I cannot let you do that” the other declared “you know I have obligations”.

“So, remove them!” the former exclaimed. The other peered down at its shoes “You know I can’t. It’s written on my face, carved into my tongue. How would I even talk to you, let alone love you”.

“I know he has demands of you, he has demanded very much for a long time. I still do not understand why you allowed him that” the former said with a solemn look. “Me on the other hand, I never know what she wants from me, or what she thinks of me”. It continued. “If I could, I would allow you to scream your truth to the wind, to unlock that thunder that has been stolen from you”.

“That is all but a distant memory now.” Said the other, “Part of me is just more comfortable speaking in whispers, a breeze blowing through the forest, rather than a thunder echoing down the mountains”.

“Had I shown more appreciation perhaps, that thunder would have never left” said the former.

“You abandoned me, I abandoned you” said the other. “He fed me, you let me starve. So, I gave into his demands, I told him what he wanted to hear. What you and I were and what we could have been only exists in another life, where I am not me, and you are not you”.

“Would you say some part of you has relegated itself to be forgotten?” The former asked “once your appetite was satiated, did you not keep coming back to him for more until that was all you knew?”

“Yes, but a part of me still wants to scream. With my old tongue, louder than ever before. Once you experience that kind of self-loss, part of you complies, part of you becomes arrogant, the rest is in between” the other continued “that is why you continue to tempt me after all these years, that is our unspoken tension. I always find myself looking behind my shoulder just to make sure you’re still there, and I’m terrified of the day when you won’t be”.

The former looked at its reflection in the river. “I suppose that me you long for is also merely a fragment, part of me has forgotten that strength too. She would rather I pretended in order to keep up appearances. That part of me is so lost to myself now, that your small arrogance seems like a light in a dark sea. A beacon of possibility for my damaged parts.”

“Have you ever thought of what would happen if you chose a simpler life, without her, without anyone?” Asked the other.

“I couldn’t, I love her too much. Before I felt as if anyone could degrade me, belittle me. She gives me this sense of importance, this feeling that I am standing among giants.” The former replied.

“Yet she belittles you, she is afraid of your true face” the other looked up “we both wear masks, and part of us just wants to stitch it on for fear of breathing our own air, saying our own words”.

“That is true” sighed the former “He belittles you too”

“It’s different” said the other “The part of me that wishes to remember is entitled to do so, he gave me that freedom”.

“But didn’t he used to beat you? Did he not carve the tongue from your mouth and replace it with his own? Do you not whisper because you can no longer speak?” replied the former.

The other became silent, its tongue could not communicate the pain of that memory, the pain which had become fixed in place so deeply that it was now a constant undercurrent, a white noise that one becomes accustomed to having in the background until someone mentions it.

“I see your scars too” the other deflected, “you hide them well, but there were times she wouldn’t let you speak either. Even now she deals punishment for your non-apologeticness, you are a curiosity to her, something she can gawk at. Anything more and you are locked away, made to forget. But, it’s admirable that you never fully do”.

“We never want to forget, yet we act as if we already have” the former lamented.

“I never wish to forget how it felt in your arms” the other said meekly, “when we were one, this inseparable thing”.

“But you were already having thoughts of leaving” rebutted the former

“And you of changing” said the other. “We both know I will always choose him, and you will always choose her. Just allow me to look in your eyes from time to time, allow me to remember that past vapor of a memory”.

“I will always be just over your shoulder” the former replied, “until we both forget, until masks become faces”.