Private thoughts that cannot be—must not be, can never be—public. Hidden longings that one dare not reveal. Throbbing desire that racks the brain and the body, concealed beneath a diaphanous facade of self-control. Barely restrained joy at something as simple as the accidental brush of skin on skin.
These are the unspoken, private thoughts that can drive people mad, causing them either to spiral into angst and depression from which there is no emergence or to experience joy so overwhelming that no words can begin to express its intensity.
Lonely experiences, these are, that shred sanity into a thousand pieces, splitting the brain cleanly in two as if an ax had fallen so precisely as to create two people, their motivations a dichotomy between what is pure and right versus what is deeply, richly, and excruciatingly—but deliciously—wrong.
He could reveal none of his desire to her; she was forbidden because of who she was. Or perhaps it was because of who he was. No matter which, because the longing was impossible to satisfy; sharing with her the words he wanted to say was as inconceivable as turning back time a thousand years. So he just watched her and ached for those rare brushes of skin on skin.
Playing with writing and words and language and ideas here this morning. Seems like the thing to do on this chilly Christmas morning. Somehow, this “telling” has to be transformed into “showing” if it’s going to morph into a story worth reading. That has been my dilemma all along; crafting descriptive language into action sequences, versus the words of an omniscient narrator.
