There is something within all man, tucked away deep beneath the veneer of societal pressures, that is vicious with selfish intent. This something, this “other self”, stealthily guides all motive and action – altruistic or harmful, kind or harsh, misunderstood or connected. The great hope of all man is that love can tame this devil, or at least have a discussion on the merits of its intentions. When that moment comes, where love rages within you with yourself – not because you asked it, but because that’s what it is – I’ve found a calm and comfort that no other drug or chemical can provide. It might be science, but it’s not outside the realm of possibility that science that tames the soul could have been guided by some skilled, caring Hand.

It’s where this feeling – and many other feelings – intersect with the man molded by circumstance that art happens, that song is sung, and that poetry and other worlds are imagined. It is surely what God intended that this be our reaction to something so personal that any description of what it is can only describe what it seems like. A concept such as love is shrouded in metaphor precisely because it cannot be adequately defined. Even the classic Pauline prose on love is merely a description of its qualities.

So all love, by this definition, is a secret love.

But our love is a secret love! Hidden deep away from all other loves, a blind comfort and companionship that only you and I will ever discover. There have been many eons of existence; neither Moses nor Napoleon felt what only we can feel. Nobody knows but us, nobody will ever know but us, this lives and dies through only your breath and mine.

So while I have you, let me hold you. Watch my face contort as my body tries to show what that great and mysterious Love is doing to my inner soul.  Watch me try and fail to write anything that can come close to showing you the Great Work that you have brought within me. Watch as I die before unlocking that door. Watch our love go unsatisfied and prowling into the night while we are here. Because in the end, I am convinced that whatever it is that has jarred that selfishness within, the hidden self, will not defeat it in this life.

But that Great Work is reason enough to continue to try and make you feel my love.