Notes on Sacrifice
To sacrifice is to make sacred, literally; to bring it into God’s light, to make the profane holy. We associate it with loss, despite the infinite, giving nature of holiness⏤the infinite, giving nature of love.
Is love defined by loss, then? Is the most profound, most holy of acts an imperfect being can do defined by a great giving-up?
When I ask Venus why She has forsaken me, am I asking the wrong question?
Am I really asking: why have I gotten what I have asked for?
Mitski equates love with self-destruction. By her account, the planet of love was destroyed by wanting too much; by engaging in what we know is terrible for us all.
As anyone who has ever been in love knows, this is not an uncommon thing.
I have an ouroboros on my arm out of an undying love, that of the first flower of my house. Surely there is no connection here.
I personally believe my tail-eating snake is one of rebirth and re-perfection, one of turning one’s body into something more divine. I do not believe it is one of annihilation.
In this case, the love is not terrible at all. The Tower is majestic in its horror.
This is to say: I believe to be loved is to be changed.
When lovers and friends (not that these are mutually-exclusive things) read my work⏤when I permit them to read my work⏤do they believe this as well? Do these words, these images of love change them as they change me?
Surely not; I have to open my veins every time I put pen to page, and whilst it grows easier each time, it still leaves scars behind. That is just what writing is.
Perhaps I doubt the love I have to give.
But surely they do change them! This is my own sacrifice, my own offering, in lieu of the world that I wish to give, that I, alone, am incapable of giving.
This is not to say I think others can give the world whilst I uniquely cannot; it requires us all to give to us all.
What loss would this great act, this madness require anyway?
What loss would I let it require of me?
One of the saddest giving-ups of love, in a very profane sense, is no longer fucking someone because of it. It is sadder the better the sex was, I believe. I think of the most recent instance of this and I am terribly reminded of my own humanity, my own vanity.
The humanity of, for example, turning around and not giving up on your giving-up after all. The vanity of sacrificing your sacrifice. Of fucking anyway.
Perhaps I am merely perpetually falling on my knees at the altar of love; perhaps it is merely the sinful allure of a dark secret; perhaps it is merely the mutual benefit. Perhaps it is all and none of these things.
Perhaps it is merely that the sex is that good. Perhaps it is merely my vanity.
In this case I do not think the problem is one of weak will; in this case, like many other disasters of the interpersonal that I subject myself to, I think the problem is that of too strong a will.
“I am not ashamed / Love is large and monstrous”
It is much easier to write about this most recent instance, this most recent sacrifice of a sacrifice of a sacrifice, than it is to write about my own divorce, for instance.
After all, I can only write the word “betrayal” in so many ways.
But as I’ve written before, or alluded to, there is really no justification, no works cited, for who deserves the sacrifice of my blood on the page. It just happens.
That said: if you ever think I am writing or have written about you, consider yourself lucky.
That said: if you ever think I am writing or have written about you, consider me wounded, maybe just in the ways that we all are.
But as always: this ink is for an old poet, first and foremost; and for every trusted reader. Forgive me for not listing you all; we are all merely angels.
This ink is for Towers of Love, no matter what loss They might invoke.