Obsession

Just lately, I've been avoiding my blog. There's been a lot on my mind, and I could use that as a valid excuse, but I actually think it has more to do with what I want to write about. I'm not sure I'm brave enough.



I hate coming across as trite. I hate repeating things that've been said billions of times before. I hate struggling, searching, grasping for the perfect, unique words I want, when I know that everything boils down to the same thing with me.



Tonight, I'm not going to worry about how I sound--I'm just going to write. I'm going to write about my obsession.



Love.



I mentioned in my last entry that I'm obsessed with lovesongs, and it's true, but it's also a much broader obsession than that. Or narrower, depending upon your perspective. To say that I'm captivated by every aspect of love, entranced by all the different ways of expressing it, makes it seem like such a diverse category; then again, it's really just a way of saying I'm fascinated by love itself. I personally believe that as much as I may love song lyrics, and poetry, and romance novels (sorry, but I am a girl) what I really love, is thinking about love itself.



I love the way it feels to be in love. Not just the initial rush, when you think you might be falling, but the easy, almost casual glide of day-to-day life with the person you love. I love the passion and adventure of being swept up in the moment, of naughty deeds in public places, of frantic coupling in a car, against a wall, from behind; but I also love holding hands, cuddling under a blanket in front of a movie, giggling like a little girl over inside jokes and that thing the other person did that was hilarious, but only to the two of you. I love that.

I even love, or at least love to hate, the feeling of being in love with someone who doesn't reciprocate. I love writing bitter, furious, obsessive, despairing poetry about people who don't even care, and I love writing resigned, heartsore, bloody-but-unbowed poetry when I start not to care, either. I love being able to say that if I ever loved someone, I still love them a little bit now, even if I've made the choice to move on. I love knowing that in some cases, I have loved so strongly and been destroyed so completely that I will never truly recover.

I love knowing that for me, love is suffering. If it doesn't hurt, then I'm not really in love. I'm frightened every time I feel a pull, a yearning, toward someone new, but at the same time I'm comforted by knowing that at least I don't have to wonder; I know it will hurt, at some point.

I love that I love being in love so much that even knowing how much it hurts, I always fall in love again. I love knowing that every time I ever said, 'I'll never love anyone again,' no matter how much I tried to mean it, no matter how much I wanted to believe myself, I knew I was lying.

I love that I don't mind sacrificing myself on someone else's altar of neglect and passivity. That I realise, and accept, that I will never be loved as fully as I love. And I love the fact that I hate it, and refuse to accept it, and rail and scream and curse in the face of it.

I love that no matter how love batters me, belittles me, and in the end finally breaks me, I always return for more. I love how I make myself forget how much it hurts, and convince myself that this time will be different, better, less agonising. I love how, when people slice off tiny pieces of my heart one by one, until finally they've carved out a great whopping chunk, and then they devour it one sliver at a time, I make myself believe that I don't mind; and I kiss them still, even when I can taste my own blood on their lips.

I love that, if I loved you, I would let you slap my face and bruise my body and even break my bones. I love that I would do the same to you, if that was what you needed. I love that I believe that when two people are in love, everything they do is sacred, and even if they maim each other, die for each other, kill each other, no one has the right to say it's not beautiful.

I love that even though I'm writing about romantic love, I feel the same way about any kind of love. I love that the purer your love is, the more it's like fire, and the more chance there is of it consuming you from the inside out. I sometimes wish that love was more like water, that I could use it to cool a fevered brow, or wet dry, blistered lips, or soothe the raw, scorched flesh burnt by some other love; but I know it is not.

I love that for me, love is a disease; most of all, I love that there is no cure.