The Benevolence of Love.
It is there, within the finer chambers of the human heart, discipline so exquisite, bordering on divine torment; that of giving love without demand of return. To love, not as a merchant but as a monarch, to act with a grandeur most cannot bother bear. In a world that delights in trade, affection exchanged for admiration, devotion only rendered where it might be returned.
Yet, true love, that ancient and ruinous splendour, refuses the arithmetic of such arrangement. It gives as the sun gives, ceaselessly, indifferently, gloriously and asks nothing but to burn.
O, how long she believed love a contract of parity, that every pulse sent forth would return, fragrant and familiar, through some answering vein. Her innocence, she mistook reciprocity for truth. Her experience that patient pitiless tutor, tuaght her otherwise. She came to see that love’s highest form is not mirrored, but solitary, that the noblest devotion is not in possession but in release. To love another without the safety of return is to stand upon a cliff and offer one’s heart to the wind. it may never be caught but in the knowing lies on’es courage.
She has known the ache of unanswered tenderness, the silence after confession, the soft humiliation of being unseen. and yet, holy is that ache. Sanctity the fulfilled could never know. For to love freely is to worship without alter; it is to pour light into darkness and not wait for the echo. Virtue is in the quiet bravery, in the steadfast refusal to let the world's indifference corrode her capacity to care.
How easily they mistake this for weakness. Cynics sneer that love unrequited is folly. That to give what one does not receive, the act of a sentimental fool. Do not be mistaken, the majesty in such foolishness, and mercy in its persistence is why our hearts beat and ache from before our first breath.
For what are we, if not the most fragile creatures, dwelling upon a lonely sphere that spins through the vast indifference of the heavens? A mere pebble adrift about a blazing sun? And if not for the exquisite torment of love unreturned, that divine agony which stirs the soul from its slumber what purpose, I pray, would remain to justify our trembling existence?
The heart that continues to give, though never replenished, is no fool’s heart. It is a relic of an older grace. It moves to the same rhythm as saints and poets, those impractical souls who understood that the value of love lies not in its success but in its sincerity.
Let others love by contract and condition; hers is a more dangerous devotion. She loves as the candle loves the night. To illuminate, not to be seen. She loves as the rose loves the hand that plucks it without acusation. And though her heart has been unmade and remade a hundred times, it remains unsullied, for no betrayal can undo the sanctity of what was given freely.
It is said that time cures all afflictions of the heart. Perhaps. But she suspects it is not cure so much as consecration; the way grief tendered long enough becomes a form of wisdom. For she, has discovered the paradox that lies at the centre of all great loves; that to lose love is not to be emptied, but to be enlarged. The heart, when broken open holds more light.
And so, she walks through the world with the quiet compusre of noe who has loved beyond reason. her eyes hold neither plea nor pride. her gait, though softened by sorrow carries an elegance born of survival. she has mastered that most difficult of arts; the art of loving without needing to be loved.
For in truth, love that expects return is but a negotiation; love that gives without return is a revelation. It is the only act that mirrors divinity, the only gesture that transcends time. to love without condition is to touch eternity with the very tips of your fingers; to hold for a fleeting mortal moment, the hand of the infinite.