Notes of a Crocodile

by Qiu Miaojin

Even now I’m still in awe of her innate power to command such devotion—not only her charms but how it felt to be deprived of them.

Male plugs into female like key into lock, and as a product of that coupling, babies get punched out. This product is the only object that can fill a square on the chessboard. All that is neither masculine nor feminine becomes sexless and is cast into the freezing-cold waters outside the line of demarcation, into an even wider demarcated zone.

It was an illicit love—a thing so dangerous it refused to be contained, yet made of nothing but sweetness.

Here’s a delusional and misguided hypothesis: If I could just fall in love with a man, it would put an end to the anguish of having fallen in love with a woman by somehow overwriting that earlier consciousness. Falling in love with a man and falling in love with a woman are two completely different things. My attraction to women has materialized, and regardless of whether it becomes a thing of the past, it’s a part of me. By the same token, the part of me battling that attraction has been around even longer. It’s like taking a bucket of black dye and adding other colors to it, hoping to change black into a different color. You can try, but you’ll never succeed.

Her beauty sent undulations through me, riveting me, taking hold of me. It was not a sensual beauty but one born of wisdom, perhaps a moral beauty. Her words showed that her fate was out of her hands, that when karma began to flow, despair was only natural. She understood the workings of destiny, the forces that had come to define her. She had seen all the world had to offer and was entirely capable of playing the hand she’d been dealt. And still she managed to retain a sensitivity that allowed her to penetrate the deepest aspects of human nature.

Love, however beautiful, always comes at a great cost to the future, don’t you think?

The best way for any relationship to end is with the sentiment I wish the best for you, and I am grateful for what we once had together.

I could write an entire book based on a single moment of silence. This was that moment of silence.