pain's whisper

I've set off on a journey to understand the world of prostitution as intimately as the boundaries of my personality will allow: intimate holding without sex, for money.
Within the past 24 hours, the sputtering contact i'd made with two women seemed suddenly to be on the verge of fruition. It seemed likely that i would be in someone's arms today.
That this didn't happen, has slammed home the reality that my journey is about more than sociological curiosity.
I sit alone in the darkness tonight, my loneliness a visceral thing, gripping my chest.
Forced to learn again that emptiness is far easier to bear when there is no reprieve at hand.
When there is no hope.
There are some who say that if i am lonely, it can only be of my own choosing. I am too smart and attractive to not have love if i want it, they say.
And in truth...
I know of a woman less than seventy feet away on this cold, dark night who would be overjoyed to hold and love me.
Overjoyed.
But...
Within a matter of days, she would seek that my intimacy be hers alone.
Within a matter of months, she would seek that my intimacy be hers alone forever.
When entering romance, i place no limits on its intensity or duration.
No limits.
No limits.
NO LIMITS.
How can that not be enough?
How in god's name can that not be enough?
In god's name...
A phrase i have never before written. Nor likely ever will again. But in moments of agony, just as ecstasy, our vocabulary reverts to phrases we learned before we knew what learning was.
We live in an era of stunning barbarism...in poignance, not one in a thousand has the eyes to see.
Someone reads these words a thousand years from now, and understands. And is shocked that i, that anyone, that everyone, didn't just seize up in death, overwhelmed by the horrific isolation and incomprehensible brutality that surrounds us every moment of our lives.
But we struggle on, denying the bleeding...
I send my love to you, future reader.
I know that you would send me a thousand times more.
In a moment less alive, that would comfort me.