You may believe that love requires sacrifice, yet within that requirement may come a sense of deprivation if your sacrifice goes unrecognized. If you feel deprived of your sacrifice you may seek for retribution and possibly even vengeance. You will do that through anger and guilt.

When you sacrifice for a loved one, do you consider that as an investment or is your giving free of all expectation? Does your sacrifice bind the loved one to you with the expectation that they sacrifice in return or else experience guilt? If your beloved fails to provide the expected sacrifice, or meet your standards of sacrifice, does that justify your condemnation? Does your indictment create guilt? Is guilt the glue that binds you to each other but also the reason for your distance and loss of love?

If you invest in a loving relationship as defined by sacrifice, you will expect a return on that investment. If your love is not completely defined by sacrifice, but only partially, and you believe that your sacrifice is unequaled, then you may find sacrifice magnified to become the chief defining quality of your love as you demand an equal return on your sacrifice. If that ‘return' is not forthright, you will indict the other as guilty of NOT recognizing your sacrifices from love and you will expect that they experience guilt. How could they not? And if you have frequently been the impetus of his/her guilt, why would you then expect sacrifice in return?

Guilt is an insidious impediment to love that can sit deep within the subconscious. It festers and slowly eats away at one's self-concept and one's concept of the other. The guilty may seek relief through psychic mechanisms that include repression, reaction formation, denial, displacement, passive aggression and of course, projection. If the ego mind will struggle so hard to deflect and avoid guilt, what could be the result of your constant reminders, often subtle and subliminal, of his/her guilt in not recognizing your sacrifices? Anger and rage will most likely come between you.

Anger projected onto loved ones becomes a substitute for love and has only one purpose - the establishment of guilt. But many believe that creating guilt in the other is an effective means of attaining desired results. Guilt becomes an effective punishment for lack of love.

Does the indictment of your spouse or partner alleviate your guilt, helping increase your innocence? Your ego/self must struggle to be guilt-free, since guilt is suffering, and so it becomes very easy to project it outward in the hope of relief. This is often how many see the world. There are the guilty and then there is me (of course, I, too am guilty, except when I can deny my guilt by focusing exclusively on yours). In your relationship, there is the guilty other and then there is you. The more you indict the guilty, the less guilt you experience, or so you believe.

Guilt and anger tends to rip relationships apart, but also can hold them together, since I'm sure we can all agree that it is the ones we love the most, that bring up the most anger and rage. If I can maintain your guilt, I can make you sacrifice for me. How else could they free themselves guilt if not through greater sacrifice? Therefore, if you follow my plan for sacrifice you too, can be free of guilt.

Do you really believe that by increasing his/her guilt you diminish your own, thereby increasing your innocence? But if we all make errors in judgment, are we not all guilty? Yet, how easily you forget in the moment of anger when they are guilty and you are NOT. But what are they guilty of? Indicting you as guilty, of course! Guilt and punishment are the foundation of society, so we should NOT be surprised that our relationships frequently follow the same rules.

Mutual indictment makes love more of a hell, than our "heaven on earth." Many couples go round and round in the blame game never realizing that the game is so many years old and no one really knows who started it or who's really to blame (this is also seems true for the macro world).

Yet, as time goes by and needs go unmet because sacrifices are ignored, the object of the game is to increase your innocence, by increasing their guilt. Unfortunately, you both know the rules of that game and he/she is playing the same game! Indict him and he easily and effortlessly indicts you. We seem programmed to repeat this compulsive drama countless times, often for many years and through countless relationships. If you find that guilt is an effective motivating strategy, you might employ it in all your relationships.

Guilt is your ‘baggage" and you will seek release from it by defending your innocence and, as we all know the best defense is an effective offense. But your attack inadvertently makes you the guilty party and you must in turn defend your righteousness. This is often the domestic hell committed couples perform, in which sacrifice for each other, (as well as sacrificing for the children) is gauged and measured. Woe be it to the one who fails to meet the most restrictive expectations of sacrifice and often we unknowingly 'raise the bar' following each and every guilty verdict.

Sacrifice is the chief platform in the foundation of our Judeo-Christian culture. We are expected to sacrifice for those we love (just as Christ sacrificed for our 'sins') and it has for some become an obligation regardless of any actual truth. Although I may have been abused and beaten mercilessly as a child, yet, depending on what cultural rules I adhere to, I may be obligated to honor and love thy father and mother.

In addition, sacrifice has become the means of displaying not only our love for our partner but even our children. The problem is that we often enslave our loved ones to guilt because sacrifice is based on relative terms and we all seem to vary in our definition of appropriate sacrifice.

Mother Teresa sacrificed beyond all expectation, but there are few among us who would even consider meeting those unlimited standards. It seems that we partake of a precarious balancing act of sacrificing the 'self' and embracing the 'self;' giving to others and expecting others give in return. So, who wrote the rules for this game, God?!

If we employ sacrifice as a measure of love, we may tend to compare and contrast sacrifice by ‘degrees' and those who sacrifice less may be considered ‘selfish' while those who sacrifice more are ‘selfless' and this can change from moment to moment and vary based on the situation or person. Thus, we have intimate relationships that exist within the limits of such contrasts and base their love on such ‘degrees' of sacrifice. The battle of guilt rages on and resentments settle deeply in the background of our "love" waiting to rise to the occasion, "and after all of done for you!" For some, this is a true representation of 'love.'

LOVE CANNOT SACRIFICE, SINCE IT CANNOT SUFFER

Sacrifice from love is not an expectation, but an honest expression of truth and cannot represent loss. Love is free of conflict and when I give freely and honestly to you, I experience NO deprivation and therefore, how can I define my giving as "sacrifice" since I do NOT suffer loss. Loving sacrifice is not sacrifice at all and has no expectation of observance, need not be emphasized (that's called ‘payback') and has no obligation to necessity. It cannot be measured and is an investment made with NO expectation of future return.

When you make sacrifices for your loved one's, you may do so out of love, but then how could that be suffered as sacrifice? Therefore, deeper truth dictates that sacrifice from love is impossible and thus, you are suffering out of deprivation and not love at all. In our relative world facsimiles of love often pass for the real thing.

Yet, if you employ your sacrifice to contrast another's lack of sacrifice, you have sentenced yourself to the chains of righteousness and you will suffer from lack of love, as will they. But, at least you can rest assured that you were right and if there's one thing the ego requires in this world of relative 'truths,' it is to be right.

In this way, love is defined as "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" which is less about love and more a business arrangement requiring numerous conditions on what we seek to have unfold as unconditional, or at least as a gradual dissolving of limitations. We so deeply long for that highest of all love, the love without condition. But, although we all seek this deeper love, we demand it be on our terms and that merely smacks of conditions.

If love is authentic, honest and real, sacrifice is impossible. If love is not 'real' then we should seek for its renewal or discovery in ways other than by measuring and comparing one's degree of sacrifice. Keep in mind that when love wanes we may feel less inclined to sacrifice and this can occur over many years. Therefore, the other may indict you as guilty of not sacrificing when actually, after many years, it is love that has been sacrificed in the name of guilt.

This essay does not attempt to define love since that is a relative concept with many definitions contingent to the mind that thinks it. However, my objective is merely an attempt to identify the possible conditions which may obstruct us from our desire for a love free of limitations. Sacrifice, and the suffering inherent within that belief system, may be just such an obstruction.

Love knows no sacrifice, because giving from love is an abundance, unencumbered by conditions and therefore, adding to you. While an experience of sacrifice is an experience of deprivation and this means you have less and suffer from it.

Therefore, if sacrifice is your experience, recognize that this can only mean that you feel deprived and if you feel deprived then make no mistake, you measure love through sacrifice. Many may contend that love is both giving and getting in return and I would agree. My point is that giving from love should EXPECT no return.

Consider this... there is NO world, only the experience of world. There is NO reality, only the experience of reality. There is NO 'you' only the experience of 'you.'

When you experience a fearful or anxious thought you immediately correspond with this internal 'state' exclusively through an experiential association with an external 'reality.' This is because, although fear is mind generated, it is always associated with the 'belief' that the cause of your fear is in some way external to mind. When, in fact, all thought is mind produced and mind sustained because there is nothing else. Even to project hatred upon your ‘self' demands that the self be defined as embodied by a 'form' external or outside the mind through which self-attack can be projected.

The paradox is that, in your experience of fear associated with an 'outside' world, instead of internally dissolving what is ultimately of great discomfort, you attempt to alter the external or 'outside' conditions that you believe provoke the experience. The problem with this is that, if the world is 'mind,' then in some way you have essentially created the conditions that you now invest with fear. If the experience of ‘reality' is within YOU, then what you believe as ‘outside' mind, is actually an experience conjured up IN mind. This may be hard to conceptualize, particularly by a mind that references its choices based on external conditions.

Non-duality is no longer paradoxical if we acutely scrutinize the phenomenon of our experience of an outside world, rather than continue to reference our experience on the factual absolute 'existence' of an outside world. This is because ‘experience' is free and clear of anything external and, although we may muddy the waters of experience through association with a belief in external ‘reality,' we choose such an interpretation and we can choose otherwise.

This is why the ‘realized master' can experience pure bliss in the understanding that, if all is OF the mind and IN the mind, in fact, all IS MIND, what is there to fear. When fear is extinguished, bliss naturally rises to the top as your true nature emerges from under the weight of imagined, and basically contrived, fears based on an external world.

The fear you experience as a subjective state is based solely on an experience of external objectivity that simply does not exist. There is no 'outside' and essentially no such absolute external reality has been proved and none of our greatest minds has ever established absolute proof that there is an outside world (in fact, Plotinus and George Berkely attempted to prove that nothing is there but an "experience" of an outside world that might or might NOT be true). This is referred to, disparagingly, as solipsism and has been attacked by many eminent minds as narcissistic simply because it seems to make you God. Nevertheless, centuries of ancient, eastern, wisdom traditions, advocate such a theory of reality and, in essence, claim that you are God.

Yet, how can the mind prove the world is an experience of mind, when the mind demands all experience be correlated within the conditions of an ‘outside' world? Can our attachment to the belief in external reality be adjusted to make ‘reality' conform to mind, rather than mind conforming to an outside reality?

Intrinsic states of mind are provable only through your experience of such a state, which only your Being can allow AS experience. Many have attempted to teach this ‘experience' to others, but it seems only the mind 'prepared' for such an experience can attain that realization and this is because rational mind must resist in order to remain rational. In fact, 'rational' means essentially to be in accord with external reality.

I can only prove my subjectivity and not yours, but essentially we may come to the realization that our subjectivities and interior states are intersubjective and equivalent in so many ways as to posit that they are essentially the same experience distinguished only through belief in partitioned, separate minds.

If we subscribe to the belief in the experiential nature of reality, as advocated by many esoteric spiritual traditions (Zen and Advaita Vedanta), there is no ‘objectivity' available to the mind and essentially objective states are actually subjective experiences generated by the mind.

As long as I reference my experiences by, and through, an external world, I will continue to experience fear based on that reference. Therefore, I will construct self-protective mechanisms to protect me from, essentially, what is NOT there. The problem with this is that all my protective mechanisms constructed to avoid fear, keep me from seeing the delusional nature of my experiences of fear (based on an empirical world), and therefore, this locks me securely into a state of mind that seems virtually indestructible and must continue to experience fear. This is because, to me, my experiences are of absolute REALITY and not simply experiences conjured up to perpetuate a retreat from my origin and immersion in the complete union of infinite, non-dual love.

Nevertheless, through fear we project attack (through some form of exclusion or rejection) upon that which we fear. But we also fear attack in return, because there is a part of mind that corresponds with this oneness and wholeness that you exist IN and AS, simply by your Being, rather than NOT Being (not to correspond with your Being, would be not to exist). Thus, although the world teaches the justification of judgment and corresponding attack, (due to guilt) there is always a sense of 'realizing' that in attacking you, I attack myself. Therefore, your guilt is mine, but I will continue to blame you in the hope of absolving myself of guilt.

We may wish to emphasize exclusive experiences within the world, and this helps maintain belief in an external world, but essentially my subjective states are no different in content/context then your subjective states because we are ONE and the same in our BEING. In truth, our Being, as opposed to not Being, is our only real experience.

Never can I experience your subjective state as this would negate and deny my separate experience of ‘self.' Therefore, we partition our experiences in the belief that we cannot share our minds and, as experiences with the world teach, only bodies can share. Thus, we live with the experience that every thought in our head is private and cannot be shared except through verbal communication. But if I verbalize my thoughts to you, you then must create your own experience of my words and in that I can never share.

Projections of fear do not leave your mind and essentially demand that they be maintained as your experience only. This is because minds cannot attack, since attack demands objectivity in the form of embodied targets or ‘time/space coordinates,' for which to validate my need to attack you. Therefore, the fallacy is the idea that there are others for which to mount an attack based on fear, when essentially all attack is subjectively experienced from both ends, the offense and defense, because it is all my experience of ONE. Both are the same and this understanding is crucial in the recognition that all attack directed at another is in fact perpetrated against one "self."

This is our mutual identity confusion and is the underlying framework for all conflict and war.

To be free of fear projection you must understand the basic dynamics of your ego attachment and that other selves exist for the sole purpose of being the cause of your fear and the object your vengeance must target. Without the 'other,' you would be faced with only your "self" and the exact nature of your fears as self-perpetuating and nothing more.

This, too, is fearful since if you were to realize the illusionary nature of you fears this would essentially speak to all the thoughts in your head, which are based on, and learned from, what the world teaches that you should experience, and is thus fear based.

Since the self exists to distract from BEING, we are uncertain that such a death of self would be advantageous (even though many spiritual traditions point to such an advantage). Thus, it is essential that we maintain our fear of this ego/self dissolution by experiencing other bodies for which to keep our self-interest firmly in place. Now you can fear not only yourself, but me as well. I am the background which keeps you firmly rooted in your foreground.

To be free of fear, you need to access a different experience contrary to what you now experience. An experience that allows you to be more than a part of the whole, but the whole itself. In this reality ‘mind' does not perceive the world, but IS the world.

Hold out your hand and examine it. Notice that your perception acutely experiences your hand as foreground, but change focus and perceive between your fingers and you will see a ‘background.' Allow your perception to attune to the background and then return your perception to the hand in the foreground. Continue alternating between the two background/foreground experiences. Now try to make them one whole perception with no differentiating. Perception will NOT allow it (and you may wind up with a headache if you try too long). Perception is trained by the mind because your eyes do NOT see, your mind does.

The realized master has changed his/her mind and sees neither foreground nor background, because the judgment required to differentiate is dissolved. However, the enlightened master will continue to be aware of the two perspectives, yet, they will have the capacity for converging the two into a unified ONE.

However, as Sartre claimed, to deny our "facticity" for some non-dualistic day dream is an inauthentic endeavor made in "bad faith." The fact is that sex is an authentic aspect of our individual and communal existence. The problem is that we seem to see it as the deepest level of intimacy, rather than as an outward bodily expression of a process that is a mutual, interior, dwelling "within" together. Sex is a ‘form' of conveying intimacy, but in our obsession with the form, we may have missed the ‘content.'

In recalling my drug addiction days (some 25 yrs ago), sex was the last thing on my mind, since the mind was much more predisposed to other orgasmic entanglements of longer duration. However, well into remission and 'recovery', sex took on greater interpretive value and I joined the masses in the national past time of perseverating on the lack thereof.

Yet, surrendering one addiction tends to make one wary of the potential ("addictive personality") to appropriate and act out another and, although sex was sought as an "instinctual" pleasure of high magnitude, I seemed always conscious of the potential to subsume or appropriate it as a dependency. This resulted in my maintaining distance from it, while at the same time I joined the masses in 'getting it' and obsessing on not getting it.' As I grow older, I find that although I can enjoy the pleasure of this ‘form' of communication, I find it less adequate in realizing intimacy.

Nevertheless, "everybody wants some" and, of course, "I want some too!" But why do we want it so much? Could it be that we have distorted its purpose? We all ‘experience' sex as necessary, and even nature attests to that 'necessity.' But, alas, we have made it so much more profound and this may be the problem. It's interesting how, in our obsession with sex as our chief means of intimacy, "fuck" is prefixed to every profound experience we describe. When something is extremely positive we exclaim "holy fuck, that's great!" and in profound negativity, "fuck that shit, I'm outa here!" So it does seem apparent that sex is one of, if not the most profound experience the everyday man/woman can access, since it gets talked about constantly.

Because of my vocation I've had the privilege of intellectually considering sex and intimacy from a distance through the discussions of other couples. I now have come to question, not the dualism between male and female, but the dualistic separation between sex and intimacy. To my mind, this is the conflict of opposites that should be explored and our desire to merge these two conceptualizations is what creates all the conflict. The millions of books written about bridging the differences between men and women fail to understand the difference between sex and intimacy. Maybe that is the bridge we seek to cross, but fail to locate.

Sex is NOT intimacy. Yet we seem to have classified it as such and many of our western social institutions perpetuate that classification in extremely exaggerated ways (especially the psychological sciences). Nevertheless, we often provide ‘lip-service' to that very sentiment and women continue to inform men that "sex is not intimacy" and men respond reflexively "so then, what the fuck is intimacy!" thereby, demonstrating that they have, in fact, defined it. Women then respond with the conventional wisdom of "more cuddling," thereby keeping it in the realm of bodily engagement. In our consistent repetition to understand the dualistic, yin/yang and resulting differences between men and woman, we should first start by understanding the difference between intimacy and sex. This is because they are worlds apart.

Bodies are poor conduits of communication and often seem to get in the way of our most profound and deepest level of communication - intimacy. Notice that if you look up the word ‘intimacy' in the dictionary this is what you might find, "(1) a close, familiar, and usually affectionate or loving personal relationship with another person or group (2) a close association with or detailed knowledge or deep understanding of a place, subject, period of history, etc.: an intimacy with Japan.(3) sexual intercourse." (Dictionary.com).

In the first two definitions we can see the concepts "close, "familiar" and "loving" as well as "detailed knowledge" and, the most profound, a "deep understanding." These terms are rather abstract and fail to relate to the usual attachments of an embodied fixed-self, but seem to point to a profound "knowledge" or a deep engagement devoid of bodily involvement.

And then, we have the conventional definition of "sexual intercourse." Notice how, in this definition of intimacy, the act of copulating takes on the defining quality, and is equivalent to, a "deeper understanding." Yet, if you examine the physical parameters of "sexual intercourse," you may note that it seems to be quite a rote, repetitive and mechanistic engagement of two (or more) bodies. Copulation tends to be limited in the ways it can be performed (although in 25 years as a practicing psychotherapist, just when I thought I had heard everything, someone presents a startlingly novel approach to the joining of bodies).

Yet, intimacy seems to have no such limitations and just when we think we cannot go any further into the depths of that "deep understanding," we find ourselves merging ever deeper. So it seems that while sex is limited by the body, who really knows how deep two minds, (even with bodies attached) can go? I imagine not many, since only the most fearless dare proceed to such depths. Such an understanding can only be a threat to the separate mind intent on maintaining separation and barely aware of an intimacy with itself.

Intimacy is a merging, or converging, of minds that ignores bodily limitations. Your body, sex or gender makes no difference to that joining and in fact the more we detach from bodily preferences, the deeper our understanding may become. However, like Husserl's phenomenology, intimacy demands that we cease to project our bodily, or form-based concepts, onto the other in the desire to ‘intimately' SEE and understand the 'other.' In this way, the 'other' becomes free of what we desire or demand conform to our magical ideations of "relationship" based on past conditioning. As the mind empties itself of concepts, the senses are no longer necessary for intimacy and, because of this, sensation is inadvertently heightened, but not overemphasized or incorrectly classified as the most important aspect of our intimate joining.  The body is only an addition to the intimate or "deep understanding" that occurs solely between two minds with the belief that bodies are unnecessary and, in fact, may impede, that deeper "knowing."

What seems problematic is that we have sanctified and sacralized that for which nature holds no such profundity. We have determined that the intimacy of minds, in which bodies are unnecessary, is unattainable because it is so ineffably frightening. True intimacy is exposure; the revealing of ourselves with no thought of self-protection. This is where spirituality comes in handy on our quest for intimacy with others, because to fully reveal oneself to another (or to the world for that matter) requires a leap of faith that not many self-protecting ego's would dare.

And because we do NOT dare, the copulation of bodies is interpreted to be true intimacy, when actually copulation only serves as an additive or embellishment to the process. Intimacy is a state of mind and can only be accessed, through the deepest understanding of other minds.

Sadly, it seems that sex has inadvertently become a substitution for intimacy and as such, it demands that intimacy, if it ever was realized by two individuals, must eventually be dissociated from and dissolve into nothingness. In my work with couples, I often ask the open-ended question, "so what about intimacy in your relationship?" Nine times out of ten, the answer I get always involves sexual activity, "Oh, well, we usually have sex one or two times a week." Then, when I respond, "no, I didn't ask about sex, I was inquiring into your level of intimacy." Alas, I am met with blank stares. Then there are the couples who have come to loathe each other beyond all repair, but still have sex, "one or two times a week."

Men will always be afraid of intimacy, no matter what gender, and women will fear men because of that. I sense that women do not fear men's aggression, but women fear men's fear of intimacy. This is because the socially indoctrinated, cultural conditioning of men emphasizes the survivalistic protective mechanisms that men must engage with to negotiate their place in society. It seems gay men may have a better intuitive sense of intimacy, yet they may still find that overcoming the instilled cultural gender indoctrination (Boys play with trucks, girls play with dolls) may impede the deeper understanding that intimacy facilitates and that demands one go deeper only to go ever more deeper. Make no mistake, the goal of finally realizing intimacy with another is to realize a "deeper understanding," since, as opposed to sex, intimacy is not a space-time destination, but a never-ending process of going inward TOGETHER. In the "deep understanding" of intimacy, aggression is naturally extinguished, because when I deeply understand you, I will have come to understand myself.

In fact, the ultimate intimacy is Source/God's relationship with us and we seem highly adept at bungling that relationship, so is it any wonder we struggle between ourselves to " deeply understand." God is infinite or absolute intimacy. You can sit in your lotus and meditate to the "Om" all you want, but until you enter the process of "deeply understanding" another, and hence, extend from that union to include the world, your meditation is nothing but a conversation with yourself; one more goal for the individual ego to desire.

Intimacy with the world is intimacy with yourself, since there is NO division, except when sex is defined as the means of trying to intimately understand another. Without intimacy, the world remains a very threatening place and sex only adds to the threat of the ‘other.' Too many ‘others' out there that we just don't understand. Better to kill you (emotionally/psychologically) than know who you are. And since I have not come to deeply understand myself, it is doubtful I could ever understand YOU. If only I could realize that by understanding the depths of you, I meet myself.

This is not a discussion on abstinence or celibacy. Enjoy the body, since, in the wholeness of Being, none of the parts need be excluded, simply seen for what they are, rather then classified and thus magnified for what they are NOT and they are NOT the whole. In our institutionalized childhood indoctrinated obsession with sex, intimacy recedes to the background and becomes inaccessible to minds in dire need of a "deeper understanding," but redirected to bodily attachments as the way to "understand." When the body is no longer worshiped and idolized as the greater or even most profound ‘part' of an intimate loving relationship (whatever form the relationship takes), the mind may take precedence above the body as the most profound communication available and, in this way, balance may finally be realized. This does not require the body be discarded, but simply given less attention. Sex is not the "be all to end all" and the ultimate signifier of intimacy or "deep understanding." Merely a part of the whole, but never the whole.

Unfortunately for now, we seem to be outside-in, requiring bodily attachments to facilitate intimate relating, rather than inside-out, realizing a deeper consciousness through the conscious joining of another.

It is not the mind that need be studied, but the merging of minds, in order to realize the whole. Only in that way can consciousness know itself through the deepest understanding of the other. I believe intimacy is clearly our final frontier and a territory, as of yet, uncharted (maybe Ken Wilber will "map" it for us). It seems highly probable to my mind that through the process of intimacy, or plumbing the depths of that "deepest understanding," God will be known, since in no other way CAN God be known. And we will know God TOGETHER.

Enough blather. Now for your musical pleasure, the profound musical visionary, Peter Gabriel, defining intimacy in "Come Talk To Me."

The wretched desert takes its form, the jackal proud and tight
In search of you, I feel my way, though the slowest heaving night
Whatever fear invents, I swear it make no sense
I reach through the border fence
Come down, come talk to me

In the swirling, curling storm of desire unuttered words hold fast
With reptile tongue, the lightning lashes towers built to last
Darkness creeps in like a thief and offers no relief
Why are you shaking like a leaf
Come on, come talk to me

Ah please talk to me
Won't you please talk to me
We can unlock this misery
Come on, come talk to me

I did not come to steal
This all is so unreal
Can't you show me how you feel now
Come on, come talk to me
Come talk to me [x2]

The earthly power sucks shadowed milk from sleepy tears undone
From nippled skin as smooth as silk the bugles blown as one
You lie there with your eyes half closed like there's no-one there at all
There's a tension pulling on your face
Come on, come talk to me

Won't you please talk to me
If you'd just talk to me
Unblock this misery
If you'd only talk to me

Don't you ever change your mind
Now your future's so defined
And you act so deaf and blind
(And you act so deaf so blind)
Come on, come talk to me
Come talk to me [x2]

I can imagine the moment
Breaking out through the silence
All the things that we both might say
And the heart it will not be denied
'Til we're both on the same damn side
All the barriers blown away

I said please talk to me
Won't you please come talk to me
Just like it used to be
Come on, come talk to me
I did not come to steal
This all is so unreal
Can you show me how you feel now
Come on, come talk to me
Come talk to me [x2]

I said please talk to me
If you'd just talk to me
Unblock this misery
If you'd only talk to me