Delibes - The Flower Duet

Mallika
Under the dense canopy
Where the white jasmine
Blends with the rose
On the flowering bank
Laughing at the morning
Come, let us drift down together

Let us gently glide along
With the enchanting flow
Of the fleeing current
On the rippling surface
With a lazy hand
Let us reach the shore
Where the source sleeps
And the bird sings

Under the dense canopy
Under the white jasmine
Let us drift down together

Lakmé
Thick dome of jasmine
Blends with the rose
Bank of fresh morning flowers
We call together
Ah! Glide along
The fleeing current
On the rippling surface
With a lazy hand
Reach the shore
The bird sings, the bird, the bird sings
Thick dome, white jasmine
We call together

Lady Moon

Lady Moon, Lady Moon, where are you roving?
Over the sea.
Lady Moon, Lady Moon, whom are you loving?
All that love me.

Are you not tired with rolling and never
Resting to sleep?
Why look so pale, and so sad, as for ever
Wishing to weep?

Ask me not this, little child, if you love me;
You are to bold;
I mist obey my dear Father above me,
And do as I'm told.

Lady Moon, Lady Moon, where are you roving?
Over the sea.
Lady Moon, Lady Moon, whom are you loving?
All that love me.

Richard Monckton Milnes

L'amour est un oiseau rebelle

(spoken intro) When will I love you?
Good Lord, I don't know,
Maybe never, maybe tomorrow.
But not today, that's for sure.
(sung) Love is a rebellious bird
that nobody can tame,
and you can call him (although it is) quite in vain,
because it suits him not to come.
Nothing helps, neither threat nor prayer.
One man talks well, the other, silent;
but it's the other that I prefer.
He says nothing, but he pleases me.
Oh, love! Love! Love! Love!
Carmen: Love is a gypsy's child,
it has never known the law;
if you love me not, then I love you;
if I love you, you'd best beware! (You'd best beware!)
if you love me not,
if you love me not, then I love you (You'd best beware!)
but if I love you,
if I love you, you'd best beware!
The bird you hoped to catch
beat its wings and flew away ...
love stays away, you wait and wait;
when least expected, there it is!
All around you, swift, swift,
it comes, goes, then it returns ...
you think you hold it fast, it flees
you think you're free, it holds you fast.
Oh, love! Love! Love! Love!
Carmen: Love is a gypsy's child,
it has never known the law;
if you love me not, then I love you;
if I love you, you'd best beware! (You'd best beware!)
if you love me not,
if you love me not, then I love you (You'd best beware!)
but if I love you,
if I love you, you'd best beware!
Choir:Love is a gypsy's child,
it has never known the law;
if you love me not, then I love you;
if I love you, you'd best beware! (You'd best beware!)
Carmen: if you love me not,
if you love me not, then I love you (You'd best beware!)
but if I love you,
if I love you, you'd best beware


My favourite aria. If I listened to it instead of playing it for you I would have known. It goes without saying I suppose that you were my favourite Aria.

Pop

And then after feelings of elation, time has its way with my hallucinations. Eventually all of the optimism that spins vigorously in my brain comes to settle when there is no warmth to keep the molecules moving. I'm here alone. There's really no shaking the idea - the fact! - that I am here alone. I did not move to anything. I did not see something I wanted and now I'm closer to it. I'm further from it than I've ever been in my life. I'm further from you, but even worse I'm further from the idea of you.

Never: Never is a hard word to swallow. Every morning I wake up and I pry myself out of bed with the word never. You told someone else forever, which means you told me never. I pry myself up by saying "Today you will not feel her love, she will not hug you, she will not kiss you, she will not drive to your house, she will not say she's rethinking this whole thing, she will not tell you anything beyond pity and sympathy. She will quietly repeat a percentage of your feelings that she too feels, for fear that you might here it and want more. She will loudly remind you that at times she felt a larger percentage of what you feel, for fear that you might resent her for misleading you. She's done misleading you. She has no more for you, she's done. She's always done. Time for you to start. Get up. Get up."

You remind him everytime he's back here that he has you forever, and I feel it. I know I feel it everytime you remind him that he won. My life was his game, and he won at my life. I don't even know how to feel mad about that, because getting back to the point, I don't know what it is I have left to go for. I am here alone.

I go to potlucks to get asked if I'm seeing anyone yet. They only ask me now to see if I'd be interested in dating their friends. When my coupled friends have finished succeeding in playing cupid for themselves they benevolently offer to refocus my arrows for me. I go to dinners to get asked what I'm doing for New Years. Nobody believes me when I say I'm bringing my friend with me to new york that she's just a friend. They attack me across the table to ask if I'm going to make a move. They all nod in agreement that this must be the only reason. I must have desperate written on my face, since she has a boyfriend. They don't realize she's the only person who has maintained an objective ear for me in my own problems, other than Amrit.

I go to parking lots to tell one girl that I think she's a great person but I can't honestly see us together. I wish you were the only reason why not. I'm pissed off enough to move on hastily to an even bigger problem, but I don't have feelings for her beyond today and tonight. She made me realize that when she looked in my eyes and said "Is work the only reason why you think we wouldn't work?"

I go to movie bedrooms to tell another girl, absolutely nothing. I don't have to say anything before she tells me that despite the fact that I'm all she has, she doesn't think I have any affection for her, just pity. I wish affection was an organic fuel and it built upon itself. My tank has been more than half empty for her since before you, before Cherine, before Larah, the last 3 girls who showed me love. I wish having affection for me was reciprocal, that I could turn it into affection for her, but I just named 3 reasons why it is not: I don't trust anyone's feelings for me are sustainable anymore. No matter how hard I try, and no matter how hard I try to not try. Plus, she's a reason unto herself: Slowly I think she's coming to the realization that what she wants is marriage or a committed relationship, and the security that comes with that. I am the round peg that she could cram into that square hole. She knows I've been tenderized and am normally soft enough to be stuffed. She doesn't realize, just like you don't realize, why I need to be hard. She'll always think that it's something against her, and I will always be the first to witness how much my firmness insults her.

I'm done being firm. I'm done being soft. I'm done pretending any of this is part of a plan with a defined result of happiness. At night in my dreams I hear them all laughing at me, and then I walk into the office, or to dinners, and potlucks, and for some reason they are still smirking. How could it possibly be so funny? I'm away from all of their eyes now so I don't have to pretend that I'm working on anything anymore. I'm not working on me. I have a week to find out if there's anything to me outside of the work I put into me. If I don't find myself by then I don't know if or when I will. I don't know where I am. the greatest thing about being with you was I felt like I was filled with helium and soaring to new places. With a bird's eye view I could search for myself everywhere. Since you left I've been trying to blow hot air into my mind keep me up there. I've blown too much fake confidence into the idea that things will get better for me. Every smile and witty progress report to friends is just more hot air.

Pop.

And yet

You said goodbye
And yet you're burdened by hellos
I withdrew my foot from your door
And yet it continues to pain me


You said no more
And yet less is to your despair
I have no time to think about this
And yet this is all there is to think about


You need silence
And yet mine rattles your ears
I lost my words
And yet yours are the ones I search for


You appear wilted
And yet you made it to December
I appear strong
And yet I died before I lived


You have everything ahead of you
And yet you need me behind you
I can't face the past
And yet my back is turned to the future


You'll be my mirror
And yet these days, there's less of me to look at
I was your carpenter
And yet you made me out of clay

Time and consumption

Timing was everything. Ours was all off. Like a full meal served in front of her when she was too full to desire it. And yet when we met she seemed to hunger for what I offered.

She never hungered for my love. She always desired his. She let mine sit there piping hot for her, while she devoured him. Bit by bit she feasted upon his flesh and left me untouched as most children do with their vegetables. No matter how I was served to her, steamed or fried, the very idea of being served what was good for her killed the appetite.

Yet when the threat of losing her entitlement to my plate approached she protested. Yearned for my vitality and even claimed she was preparing herself to consume me. So there I lay, waiting for her lips to touch me. She stuck her fork in me to let me know I was done, removed it swiftly only to press her lips against my cheek before I bled. Knowing how much I yearn to be devoured she teased me with these half bites.

She just couldn't bear the idea of seeing me bleed, to be fair. She's used to his flesh, she doesn't realize yet that my kind does not bleed. She doesn't realize that when her fork pierces me I simply multiply. What was once a single sprout is now a man torn in two, torn between leaving and staying...whichever will put me back together again.

I am not flesh. I will not give her iron. I am plain, I am simple. I need only sunshine and water to grow; or so I thought. Months of reminding her I needed her sunshine to complement the rain already within me. I was wrong. Now I realize I was wrong. There was a time when I was right, when sunshine was my complement. Now, I do not have her warmth, and so now I do not hunger for it. Now, I simply need to be returned to the soil. Under the earth I need to be reborn. I need new roots for this dissected stem. I need to grow down before I can grow up. I need to add life to this death.