forbidden?

The first time I saw her, it was like a vision. One of those rare moments in life where you feel connected to God, to heaven, to every realm of the universe that is so much more than you will ever be. I remember being at a loss for words, a loss for air, a loss for sane thought. She swayed into my life, confidence exuding from every poor on her tiny body, my heart thudding love songs behind my rib cage.

I am a man of rationality, I always have been. I've prided myself in logical thinking for all the years in my life. It was what got me through 8 years of college, what earned me my PH.D, what got me through long nights of being over-stressed and over-worked. I know how the world works, and I live my life in a very formulaic way. Thus most relationships in my life have been nothing short of clinical.

My first wife and I were brought together by biology, my junior year of college. We had similar ambitions, similar lifestyles, in this way we established a relationship – there was no passion, no rawness to us. Our divorce was similar, it was smooth and emotionless, just another pile of paperwork on my desk. Essentially, I am a realist. I don't even dream in my sleep.

48 years into my life, and this is all changed. I wonder now, how this can be. In every persons life there is the moment, I think, when you suddenly realize that everything you thought, everything you believed, was so irrevocably wrong. She was mine.

All she had to do was walk into my kitchen, as I was methodically preparing dinner at 7pm as I did every weeknight. She walked slightly on her tip toes, her smooth calves leading up to jean shorts, a man's button-down shirt left unbuttoned over a tight tank top, her golden hair spilling down her back. Her eyes, blue, framed with millions of pure-black lashes, giant, staring at me. I had become deaf, paralyzed, dead. I had died, right there, in my kitchen, in the sight of an angel.

She has beautiful, she was everything I had never dreamed. She was my daughter's best friend.

In life you are handed many choices, and there is always a distinction whether it be clear or nearly undetectable – there is always a right and a wrong. Which you choose is always determined by your knowledge of the situation, or lack thereof. That was always my belief, but after the day I met Julia, I began to realize that the knowledge of what is 'right' does not always help, when what is wrong is what you need. When every bone in your body yearns for it, when your mind never sleeps, when you feel at last that you have a soul. When you have lived a life was lifeless as mine, and you finally feel a fire burning inside of you, it is almost insane to think of letting it pass by.

I could say there was nothing I could do to escape it, but that would be a lie. Of course I could have walked away, I could have done something. But I wouldn't.

Her eyes, when they beheld me, seemed to come alive. I like to believe that my daughter noticed nothing, but I know in my heart this cannot be true. From the very first moment, the passion was tangible. It filled up the room, it drowned us. I couldn't keep away from her, I couldn't close my mouth. When my hands finally touched her skin, it was though my flesh was on fire. Pushed against the wall, her body hard against mine, our lips together. I had found God.

It was like a game after a while. We had established rules, there was an etiquette to us. While we pretended what we were doing was normal, we knew it was not allowed. We hid in the shadows, we let ourselves blossom together, but only in the dark. It could be seen as a terrible way to exist, yet it was beautiful. I had my muse, I had beauty in every moment of my day. The first time our bodies joined together, I felt inhuman. Her legs wrapped around me, her hair cascading over my own face. Life had become heaven, I would die for this.

I became sick. This is normal, once you become old. Death is as inevitable a part of life as anything. But it is the one part we as humans try so hard to forget. As weeks trickled by, I began to feel Death become a part of me. It existed in my core, it existed with my blood and organs. It waited to swallow me whole. It makes sense that when I had at last found reason to be alive, I would die. What is a good story, after all, without a tragic ending?

I told no one, even when I began to feel my body deteriorate from the inside out. I was rotting, I felt as though pieces of me were falling off and being left behind each day. Each day that I saw her became nearly too much to handle. My heart felt as though it could explode. I was too happy, I was too fucking sad. The beauty, the beauty of her. I never had to tell her. One day, she looked into my eyes, and she knew. The young body, it possessed terribly old eyes. She said nothing, only looked at me, then slowly wrapped her arms around me, pulling me tighter and closer, tighter and closer. I never cried, but my heart nearly broke as I felt her tears drop slowly, one by one, down my back.

“I love you.” She whispered into my ear, into my hair, her breath hot and quick on my neck. “I love you, I will always.” Her voice was broken, as broken as her heart, as broken as my body. I did nothing but hold her back, feel the frailness of her thin body, her smooth skin under my old calloused hands. I did nothing.