i have never been an overly emotional person. i don't get attached to people often, and have no problem with someone exiting my life. i fell in love once. i was a freshman in high school. a new school. she was a senior, and on the varsity soccer team. i had never felt anything like the emotions that ran rampant thru me while i was with her. i was ready to pledge my life and soul to her in the span of a few months. needless to say it didn't work out and she went off to college. i was crushed. it felt like a hole had been punched right thru the middle of me and all of life's experiences were passing right thru me. nothing was the same for me after that.

i decided that what i felt was a weakness that i had to purge. i hardened myself to everything around me and became very cynical toward all notions of romance, anything that wasn't based solely on physical attraction was foolishness and i couldn't be bothered with it. i didn't realize it then but i was shutting off a lot more than just my ability to fall in love, but a whole gamut of emotions that come as a package deal when you allow yourself to become emotionally invested in someone. other life changing events came and went without me batting a lash. my grandfather died and i didn't shed a tear. my best friend killed himself and i slept fine. i joined the army and left everyone who cared even a little about me. i haven't seen my mother or brothers in over five years, and feel no compulsion to do so. i have seen endless amounts of human suffering in war and, despite a few nightmares, have come from it emotionally unscathed.

now don't get me wrong, it's not that i never feel anything. i get happy when something goes my way, and angry or frustrated when it doesn't. but the depths of feeling that i see others go thru is absent from me. i am emotionally monotone for the most part, with only slight deviations up or down occasionally depending on the situation. i have pastimes that distract me. i surf and fight because it frees me. i can transcend emotion when i surf, and forget that i am not like everyone around me while i am walking on water. i fight because i am good at it, i impose my will on someone else, bend another mans mind by the strength of my hands. i do these things because i am outside of myself while it is happening.

all that changed recently.

i met a woman. a woman who makes me feel awkward, who makes words stick in my mouth like too much peanut butter. my heart jumps when she is close, and aches when she isn't. she is the most beautiful thing i have ever seen. she makes me want to be better for her and the entire world.

i feel those old weaknesses creep back into the forefront of my mind and grab on tight. it makes me angry that i cannot control them like i have for so long. it elates me that i begin to feel that maybe they are not weakness at all. that maybe they are closing the hole in me. i begin to feel whole. at least that's what i WAS thinking.

this woman is married. she is married to a man who beats her. words fail me as i think of it. my hands shake as i write it, thinking of her being hurt. i feel the fire inside me surge upward like bile. so intense is this animosity and rage that i feel it will burn me down. destroy all the strength that i have worked so long to build for myself. make me the kind of person i know i don't want to be. make me the kind of person i would have my sons bury.

i had no knowledge of a marriage when i started seeing her. had no idea of the kind of trouble i was falling in love with. and despite all this, i would not have us part ways. i didnt have to make that decision. she has left me and returned to her husband.

it seems that once again love has made me a fool.

i don't want to heal my broken heart. i want to crush it so completely that it cannot do this to me again. grind it to dust and watch it blow away. never again will i be so stupid as to believe in these idiotic notions of love. love isn't something you want. love is evil and doesn't care what it does to you. love will change you and make you small. it will take everything from you, and when you are nothing but a useless husk, it will discard you. if you dont serve it's purpose then you are nothing.

i will push this down as far as i can. fight til my hands break. surf til i drown. maybe then i will get over this.

what do i do now?