I was nineteen years of age, a typical young adult pushed out of the comfort and simplicity of school life and thrown in to the chaos of the outside world. The choices, the competition and the constant feeling of being behind the curve used to leave me feeling like an outlier. As I was grappling with the uncertainties of an independent life, a chance subscription of The British Library allowed me a peak into some of the most sensitive and sensible minds of the literary world.
I was not an avid reader but whatever I read during those few hours in the library left a mark on my malleable mind. I rarely bought books home, instead preferred to wander through various sections and scroll through a range of topics. One of the many books I randomly scanned through was a compilation of love poems. Some of these poems, I copied down only to lose the papers in the years since. One poem though simply stayed with me, all through these years.
I was too young and inexperienced to appreciate and understand the expression but somehow it appealed to me, it made sense. Over the years as I struggled to find my way and struggled to make sense of the struggle, the poem assured me that I was not alone, that the fear was not abnormal and it was perfectly reasonable to crave for the safe space between her breasts.
We are born alone and we die alone and in between these two events, at some point in our life, we realize our inadequacy. At some point we understand the pointlessness of the struggle and then the only thing that we really crave for is a place where we can exhale, where we can let go, where we don’t need to fight, to prove a point or struggle for relevance. A place where our inadequacy is excused and accepted.
I met her a year later and soon found out that space, my safe space. The very idea of having a place where I can collapse and breathe free, gave meaning to the meaningless conflicts I endured through the day. In the years to come, the feeling of being an outlier remained as a constant companion. I didn’t belong to the world of productivity and precision. I was forced into it and never really found my way out. Enterprise for me was just a tool of sustenance, nothing more, but it was bearable.
It was in the mid-thirties that I lost the space. I was inconsolable and struggled to come to terms with the reality that it was not available anymore. I was in denial of having being left alone and craved like a man possessed. I don’t remember the last time I rested peacefully but I do remember the moments, every breath that I exhaled, every pulse that I felt, I remember it all and I revel in it.
The poem never made more sense as it does today, every word resonates. The helplessness, the battle, the longing and the relief, yeah I know it too well. There is no greater privilege than being a man who is loved, with a space to rest between her breasts. Never ever let go of this space, no riches, nothing this material world has to offer can come close to the security of her breasts.
Song of a Man Who is Loved
Between her breasts is my home, between her breasts.
Three sides set on me space and fear, but the fourth side rests
Sure and a tower of strength, ’twixt the walls of her breasts.
Having known the world so long, I have never confessed
How it impresses me, how hard and compressed
Rocks seem, and earth, and air uneasy, and waters still ebbing west.
All things on the move, going their own little ways, and all
Jostling, people touching and talking and making small
Contacts and bouncing off again, bounce! bounce like a ball!
My flesh is weary with bounce and gone again!—
My ears are weary with words that bounce on them, and then
Bounce off again, meaning nothing. Assertions! Assertions! stones, women and men!
Between her breasts is my home, between her breasts.
Three sides set on me chaos and bounce, but the fourth side rests
Sure on a haven of peace, between the mounds of her breasts.
I am that I am, and no more than that: but so much
I am, nor will I be bounced out of it. So at last I touch
All that I am-not in softness, sweet softness, for she is such.
And the chaos that bounces and rattles like shrapnel, at least
Has for me a door into peace, warm dawn in the east
Where her bosom softens towards me, and the turmoil has ceased.
So I hope I shall spend eternity
With my face down buried between her breasts;
And my still heart full of security,
And my still hands full of her breasts
– D. H. Lawrence
Aisle Seat Stories 