THESIS

Were humans made to feel incomplete?

It does seem so. It seems we were designed to be chronically unsatisfied, forever yearning for something more – a something that sits on our chest and sometimes weakens our lungs, but that often we cannot articulate with our limited array of words. This impediment makes us feel even more fragmentary and fragmented. In our own perception, we become a synecdoche of ourselves, the part to an unattainable whole.

Until we do find that other piece we were desperately looking for.

It is often in Love, love the personification, that we find what we recognise as a previously missing peace of mind and piece of our body. It is Love that makes us feel as if we belong, even if in a small corner of the world. It is with Love that we create a dynamical synergy of two single engines that are endlessly fuelling each other. It is Love that we, and everyone else for us, call our “other half”.

Were we not whole before?

We were not, according to the imaginary of love perpetuated by saccharine love songs, red wine music avec cheese and confiture lyrics. Where were you hiding, Love, you Missing Part of Me? I was only playing before you touched me, my dear Missing Puzzle Piece. But, Love, now you complete me. You fill the void inside of me until I am whole.

Metaphorical whole of the metaphorical half I was before.

ANTITHESIS

But how is it that when we find Love our bodies complete each other so perfectly, as our souls do?

It is part of the nature of Love to be incomplete unless together, the Ancient Greeks would say. Through the voice of a philosopher and in the shape of a myth, as they would. The primeval man was the Androgynous, neither man nor woman, yet the union of the two – a round creature with four legs and four arms and two faces, looking opposite ways. The strength and thoughts of these creatures were so great that one of them dared to scale heaven, and the gods were outraged. Zeus decided to punish them. He cut each man-woman in two, and Apollo healed their wounds.

They are now each a creature on its own, yet feel incomplete.

 Each man or woman desires his or her other half, and when they find their lost half, they will spend their whole lives together for they cannot be apart. And they will not be able to explain this yearning as it is not only of the flesh, but of the soul. Human nature was originally a whole. So, Love, if you are the one, the right to my left, you were made to complete me.

Physical half of the physical whole we were before.

SYNTHESIS

Yet all of this is not quite right.

Because, Love, what if you are not the one? Then I am not tied to you. When you set me free, I should be able to let you go. And I try to, we all do, but sometimes we can’t. And we feel incomplete when Love is not part of our life anymore.

Love was not my soulmate. Before meeting you, Love, I was whole on my own, thank you very much. Yet I made space for you inside myself, I created it by scraping off little crumbs of my essence – I handed them to you, little by little, and you accepted them. Then you left, or I did, but unwillingly. And I miss you, but I also miss some part of me.

Metaphorical half of the metaphorical whole I was before.

What if our bodies reflected the state of our souls, in a new mythology of a person in half? The feeling of uncompletedness is lost in the finding, and found in the losing. With Love, we would be our whole selves; untouchable by the gods yet breakable by the hand of Love. And so we would cut ourselves in halves upon losing that person, and they would leave with the shadow of our second half.

We would then be Half a Person, with one leg and one arm and half a face, with a brain that regenerates and a heart that maybe doesn’t. We would stumble through life and live half-heartedly, broken but unbreakable.

And when obliged to speak, we would speak in halves, and half of our words would be lost in the wind. Only we would know what we truly mean.

If I were a Person in Half, and you owned the half that I lost,
there is a part I would say                                                              and there is a part I would only think

I was very much                                                                                                                            whole before

finding you and                                                                                         giving you so much of myself that

half of the substance that                                                                                                          makes me me

now belongs to you                                                                                           and since you are not here  

to share it with me                                                                                                                      anymore I feel

I have lost                                                                                                                               that part forever.

You turned me into this.

Metaphorical and physical half of the metaphorical and physical whole I was before.

Originally published on Half: A KCL
Creative Writing Society Anthology, March 2020