The Desirous Heart

In the Sonoran Desert, there grows a Cactus that has small, perfect peach coloured flowers, and clusters of long, needle sharp spines. Also in the Sonoran Desert lives a small bird with brown mottled feathers. The Finch does not rely on the Cactus for its survival. Nor does the Cactus need the Finch. And yet, time and time again, the small bird with the brown mottled feathers will be seen to perch on the needle sharp spines and try to reach one of the peach coloured flowers with its beak. No one knows why the Finch would do this. Perhaps it is attracted to the colour of the flower. Or, perhaps, it is the sweet scent that compels the Finch. But the spines of the Cactus are often longer than the beak of the small, brown bird with the mottled feathers. And so the Finch will launch itself at the Cactus repeatedly. Each time more desperately. Until, at last, one of the long, needle sharp spines will pierce the beating heart of the tremulous Finch, killing it instantly. This is how it feels to love some-one who does not know they are loved. Always the small, perfect peach coloured flower of our desirous heart is there. And always there is the one long, sharp and piercing, inevitably fatal spine.