Still in tatters from the smell of you

Why did I not notice it before? A little late, I suppose, I've realized what a major part of the human condition pining is. I look around me and it seems everyone is walking through life with their world tinged blue with it.

To pine: to yearn intensely and persistently especially for something unattainable. Or: to lose vigor, health, or flesh (as through grief).

I'm not talking about wishing and hoping that you'll meet the one. That loneliness is painful in its own right, but so much more manageable than what happens when it's a particular face you long to see. Ah, the exquisite pain of the unattainable. The one who walks with you everywhere you go. Who knew you, knows you still. Who delighted in your goodness and somehow reveled in your badness. Whose name you whisper with closed eyes when you're alone. The one who won't ever be with you, no matter how much love there is (love doesn't conquer all), and worse, is with another, or maybe several others, while you're still walking the earth, pining away. The one.

It hurts, but it hurts so good, doesn't it? Why else would we all be torturing ourselves with it? Because mixed with every regret is a bit of that electric feeling the one was able to elicit.

Like Steve Earle sings:

Since you're gone my empty arms have nothing left to hold
And your memory cannot keep me warm but it never leaves me cold


You can even pine for the person sitting right next to you on the couch. They're right there; you can reach out and touch them, pining all the while for what they once were to you, when they were everything to you. Or maybe that's a copout and the pining is actually for yourself. For the lost time when life seemed simple and your confidence hadn't been stirred and shaken beyond repair.