text: He sat in his hand-crafted oak chair on the front porch of his beach house. He breathed heavily, taking in the salted ocean air. It wasn’t a bright sunny day, nor was it an overcast day. In fact, it wasn’t day at all. It was dark, middle of the night. The rain pattered around him and on the roof over his head. The wind picking up as the storm moved in. He sat in his oak chair, leaned back and stared out into the ocean abyss. The lightning flashing in the distance, the thunder booming in his chest. The ocean waves rolling and splashing on the beach in a rhythmed manner. He closed his eyes and saw through his ears. Each set waves crashing onto the beach, soothing, almost. Alone he was, as most knew better than to stay. He, on the other hand, didn’t care. He enjoyed it. He enjoyed the wind sweeping the rain around the beach, splattering him in the face. He enjoyed the nearly winter cold temperatures that resulted from the incoming storm. He enjoyed the potential of the waves rising so high that it would take out him, and his beach house. It was the risk that made him feel alive. It was the pain that made him breathe. There was something here that took away the pain he felt inside, the hopelessness he felt inside, the crushing sensation that drowned him on the inside. For what drives a man to such a thing? To sit unmoving inside a storm that was destined to destroy? To cause a man to resort to such a form of insanity? Why love, of course. But this wasn’t the sort of love that one could act on. If he had loved someone, and they had yet to love him, then he could try. He could court, flirt, engage in conversation, engage in contact, to try and convince them that his love was real. If he had loved someone, that were young, immature, then he would wait. Patience, was something he had practiced. He would wait a decade for the right moment to try. No, he had loved someone that was completely disinterested. Disinterested to a point where they viewed him as a different species. It was the sort of love that he could not act upon for the other was already loved. He understood it rationally. He understood it in his head. The pre-frontal cortex that governed the higher thinking. He understood it all. But his emotions. His heart, raged at the cage his brain put it in. His heart shouted and punched, fumed and kicked, rattled and swore at the logical railings his brain re-built every day that it was torn down. He had lived with it for many years. But his well-practiced patience eroded away. The railings he put up were weaker by the day. It took his heart less time, each day to tear it down. He was tired. Tired of battling. Tired of pushing his heart down into the deepest corners of his soul. He looked upon the horizon. The waves rising, crashing against his porch. The wind howled, swept, whipped, and peeled at his skin. It formed the rain into piercing needles that struck him like tiny lashes. The pain was beautiful. It was exactly what he was looking for and more. The wind now pushed so hard, and so fast, that it was difficult to breathe. The roof above his head began to disappear as it was torn up into the flashing sky and the shouting clouds. He began to laugh. The ground shook. In the distance a wall approached. It seemed like slim sliver at first, but he knew better. As the unrelenting wind and rain carved against his skin. As the sky lit up brighter than the midday sun, bellowed louder than the loudest canons. As fires appeared around him, seemingly disobeying the laws of nature. The wall approached. He stood up from his hand-crafted oak chair that was immediately thrashed from underneath him and into sky. And alone he stood. He finally felt what he felt on the inside. Everything was in balance. He was free to let his heart out. “I love you, - “ For a swift moment, he sounded louder than the gods. For a swift moment he felt brighter than the sun. For a swift moment his heart jumped out and stood fast against the wind. For a swift moment, he was at peace. But he had timed it just right. All according to his plan. All because of his patience. For now he drowned on the outside as well as the in, and his peace was made eternal.