What is This Thing Called Love

Image by Robert Balog from Pixabay

Love is not a script written on a postcard — love — is not etched in sugared kisses nor candied dreams. Instead, it is a missive, sealed with grit, with a taste of tears, a dance of two bodies twirling in the wax and waning of each other.

Love is akin to a supermarket aisle, with endless choices, all the fruit spoiling in our hands. Is it sweet, or is it bitter? We pick up and put back, undecided. A fruitfly orbits, like a moon, around our uncertainty. Is this what we want? Is this the joy we carved from our bones?

Tomorrow, love will be a lighthouse, a beckon in stormy weather. The harbour bell rings: come in, come in, it pleads. But love isn’t always safe; sometimes, it’s the epitome of the storm itself, the crack of thunder, the lightning carving bright angry scars across the night sky, the alluring Siren dashing hope upon the windswept rocks.

You’re waiting for the movie moment; the rose petal cascade. It’s not coming, love. No one told you about the bruises from the rocks, the tears from the thorns, the bleed of red on white, the sting and salt that follows the falling petal.

Love is the choice, love. It’s the sign at the crossroads; the coin flipped into the well, the toll paid to the ferryman. It’s every step taken and not taken; it’s the regret and the relief, the thank you and the goodbye.

Love is the dessert menu after a mediocre meal, the rainbow in an oil puddle, the nightlight in a pitch-dark room. It’s the hope, love, the wistful wishing on a star, the dawn breaking after a nightmare.

And love is the quiet, too. The pain of silence, the words unspoken, the silent goodbyes. The missed calls, the unsent text, the empty bed, the cold side of the pillow.

Pain and pleasure entangle, forging a symphony of raw emotion: emancipating yet deadly. It’s the scream and the whisper, the laughter and the tears, the exquisite pain and, within it, pleasure. It’s the choice, love. It’s always the choice. You get to choose. You always get to choose. And if you’re lucky, love, it chooses you back.