Is it wrong to want to be understood?

I think it might be.

That would explain why we are so effortlessly felled by people that love us. I mean, why do we love people? For them, or for us? I bet it's both, but mostly the latter. We love people that make us feel complete. And the truth of the matter is so hard to take:

We aren't supposed to be understood.

Take just now, for instance. I wrote a poem, a poem that I really liked a lot. I was quite proud of it. Emily read it and wanted to know what it was about. I answered truthfully--I suppose--and said her. She flew off the handle and started crying because I "thought she had unrealistic goals."

Maybe I'm selfish. Maybe I'm wrong. But that's not what I meant at all, and no matter how many times I told her, she wouldn't listen. I don't know that the poem was about her. I mean, it was sort of, but then again it really wasn't. The things I write are rarely so didactic as to be translated into a one-sentence moral. It was a poem, not Aesop's fucking Fables.

After I stuck my foot in my mouth, I sat here for the longest time, thinking of what else I could say. And then I had an epiphany, so I called her. The poem wasn't about her unrealistic goals, it was about her wandering through fantasies and grand dreams helter-skelter while I drift away from her. While she drifts away from me.

Did she listen? No, she was beyond the point of listening. Maybe she'll read this and understand. Then again, maybe she can't. Maybe that's the problem. Maybe we just can't really understand each other; maybe no one can. Which leads to a really uncomfortable question:

If love is just disappointment at not being understood, wouldn't it be better to not try? Because then you wouldn't hope for understanding. Wouldn't it be better to die alone?