Cloth of the Ideal

Lamenting

Wednesday, December 3, 2025

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Everyone wishes to feel as if they mean something—as if they're special to someone—as if they stand out above the rest, or as if they could ensure they'll be remembered. Though, it seems cultivating this worth is not only daunting, but arduous and exacting. It is not a delicate process as though we were all butterflies whose wings are a thin veil of innate beauty and value.

I have never loved anyone before, and most days I believe I never will. It is a difficult truth to admit, but no longer aversive to my heart. Indeed, I have never uttered "I love you" to someone romantically, so the weight of those words grows heavier with every passing year. Alas, maybe God will grant me a spouse in time, if He deems me worthy enough of her, who will hear those words for the first time I ever say them. But most of the time, I must remind myself to be content with daydreaming of what mutual love might feel like, rather than believe, intrinsically, I will ever have the opportunity to experience it.

I am a man built upon perceptions and masks, nothing of substance. So, perhaps this reality makes sense for someone like me. I am not cut from the cloth of the ideal of which those around me demand in the name of intimacy. I have weighed perfection across my neck and have deemed it a bit too heavy upon my shoulders. I resort to casting it from me like a stout coat, exchanging it for the gossamer, shadowed comfort of solitude in return.

Oh, to be a butterfly whose mate demands beautiful, symmetrical perfection. Perhaps, by some stroke of vain injustice, we are not so different from them as we think.

Don't fall don't break,

Don't flinch don't ache;

man—keep!

Don't moan don't cry,

Don't fuss don't sigh;

a man—your keep!

Don't love don't lust,

Don't lie don't trust;

Be a man—Earn your keep!