To Be When Nothing Truly Is

Untitled | Maria Sokolowski | Drawing

To Be When Nothing Truly Is by Oona Buckley

Nothing is, all is merely perceived. All exists suspended in time. Floating particles of being. Fluid. Connected. Consciousness, perception, the only things that keep us separate. Each individual lives forever alone. Never tangible in themselves, never perfectly grasping another. Incapable of seeing through another's consciousness, incapable of having theirs seen through. Each perceives, each is perceived. No one is, for no one’s consciousness is entered. Not one tangibly exists. Not one exists independently outside of the lenses that keep us separate. 

But one can come so close, so close to being. So close to understanding the incommunicable. So close to being understood. Understood so deeply that each can almost, just almost, see through the other's lens. One can love. In love, one finally becomes tangible to another. In love two beings come so asonishingly close to escaping one's inherent isolation. To love is to live beyond the lens. To love is to be when nothing truly is. 

Love is not a feeling. Love is a state. Love is forever, yet so dependent on time. When one loves intrinsically, they love presently. Understanding another's current being. Such a state is not fleeting. The state can remain, as the present recedes. 

One may continue to love, yet concurrently let go. After parting, each individual continues to grow. Each’s perspective evolves and expands. Soon one won’t love, because soon one won’t understand. After being, now one simply was. The love does not fade, but it no longer is. For one no longer is, for one is no longer understood. 

I will always love the you that was, the you that still is to me. I cannot love the you that has since become, the you that now is to you, for nothing truly is. All is merely perceived.