Amare
Love. What is love really? A simple question that dates back millennia in human history in trying to perceive this simple and mundane definition.
Psychology would dictate that it's about one's attraction towards an object, being, or action that reflects a positive emotion—typically happiness and glee. But I'm no psychologist, nor am I knowledgeable in the subject matter to even contest such a definition when I have yet to experience what many call genuine love.
I had and have fallen in love, I have claimed the hearts of others and have been in the mind of another. However, the question whether such love was genuine is incomprehensible for I have no knowledge in the methods another individual operates. Moreover, if they did love me genuinely, I wouldn't have been tossed aside like a broken toy that was picked up from an old and rotting toy box. This carcass of a loveless man is nothing more than an echo of a bygone past to which he clings onto. Thinking that love will save him from all his problems in life while never addressing what type of love he so callously desires is never irrational and more so as irresponsible.
Infatuation is a dangerous and addictive drug that many around me have depended on; thriving on the smallest interaction with the person they are unfortunately addicted to thanks to the bare minimum of respect and acknowledgement of their pitiful existence. A pity because I as well have fallen victim to such instances and I never came out the same way.
Robert Sternbeg talks of love as a triangle; where to achieve the purest and most genuine form of love called Consummate Love, it must possess passion, intimacy and commitment.
In our day and age many are afraid of commitment because they have no methods of knowing whether their particular partner would even allow themselves to commit towards themselves and vice versa. Many dating approaches rely on this mutual agreement that a lack of commitment towards a romantic relationship is more or less negotiable for many see love as a game of irresponsibility as they seek the carnal desires of procreation that Schopenhauer argues in his essay.
Though I disagree with his statement regarding love as nothing more than a tool for the ensured survival of the human species through sexual reproduction; there are many that agree that love and sex are somewhat mutually intelligible. But I digress, many can have sex and not fall in love, while there are those that can fall in love without even having sex.
But it remains, the idea that Love is irresponsible; it is selfish, greedy, and addicting. It is a vice that many should refrain from in order to save their psyche or lest be turned into Eros forever loving a person even at the cost of their own personal safety and wellbeing. To love is to bleed oneself dry and to open oneself to vulnerabilities to be assessed by their partner. Those afraid of criticism are doomed to attain relationships due to the fact that Love is often enough a game of do or die, change or be left behind, and develop or be trampled by despair.
Consummate Love is a myth, if it does exist then why did God give me such a miserable life where the person I love has copulated with another behind my back and attempted to tell me with a straight face that I was the one she loved. Does she truly love me even if I was not the one whom she released her carnal desires to?
Can it be argued as love when they procreated as friends under the influence of alcohol in a social gathering that I had no idea about because she had kept it a secret from me.
Rarely do I have my thoughts run around into the world, when alcohol has taken the reigns of my restraint and unshackles me from societal norms—only then will I have the courage to speak my mind and thus I did.
I went to that damned party, armed with nothing but myself and my true emotions.
Of anger, of rage, of malice, and of this fake perception of love.
Many say that to Love is to sacrifice everything including yourself.
I have done the impossible and reformed my very personality. I have changed the methods in which I think, I act, I speak, I write, I eat. I have changed everything about me that the old me no longer exists; all that's left is this cynical and pessimistic nihilism who is now walking towards the edge of tomorrow with a woman who has taken pity on him.
I remember in the days when I was studying in University about the topic of Philosophy and the name of Nietzsche would be brought up. In which he believed that there is madness in love; for which I agree. Only the insane would've done feats known impossible to man for the sake of Love alone. But he also completes the statement by saying that there is reason in madness. Such as when Dionysus is considered the God of wine, debauchery, and trickery; he is also considered as a god of madness.
That night, I confronted the two of them after my friend told me everything over the phone. I got my ass beat up that night and got dumped. I was laughing the whole time, until I wasn't. All this time the idea of Love in my head was so corroded and faded that possession became love, infatuation became passion, and obsession became security. The idea that I have loved another so much that I began to hate myself has taken a toll far heavier not only on my body but also my already cracking mind.
It would soon spiral into a series of events in which I wish I could've forgotten but will never do so. For justice is blind, and in pursuit of blind justice I have taken up revenge as a tool and vengeance as motivation.
Yet here I remain. Alive, broken yet in one piece. The demons in my head are partially suppressed by a God given angel who seems to be holding my hand as she takes me all over the empty streets of this sleeping city. Where the neon lights illuminate the dirty and unkept streets, the stench of nicotine in the air is strong as the sleepless remain awake in order to provide for whatever family or desire they wish to attain.
Lyanna would shoo away the prostitutes that walk the streets and those that dared to approach us to rob us blind have been deterred—for some reason—by this silly sweet fallen angel which hides her horns and fangs.
Fangs that I wish would just sink deep within my neck to finally suck me dry of this nihilistic tendencies and show me the true nature of happiness once more. I tire of smiling without a happy thought, or laughing with things that are never humorous.
Yet for some reason I can't help but feel normal in her presence.
Lyanna. What are you? Are you perhaps a witch like Morgan le'Fay who has come to seek the Kingdom of Camelot? Are you my Cleopatra who wishes to save herself while playing along as my trusted confidant? Maybe you are my Theodora who simply wishes to be the empress of my fallen empire. You're too kind to be Olga, too alive to be Anastasia, less religious than Joan, too trusting and kind to be Katarina.
Lyanna, why do you do this? Is this how your perception of Love stemmed from? By being saved by that man you so hold dear, you have taken it upon yourself to help those in need despite the sacrifices you endure? What pain do you hold to believe in the idea of Love?
I pray to whatever divine being that you have at least known the feeling of consummate love because I think I cannot provide that to you. Am i too far to be saved Lyanna or are you doing this simply 'just cause'?
I want to tell you I love you Lyanna, but that would make me a dumbass ain't it? To fall for a person you've only met at a questionable time in your life after showing the most basic human kindness is stupid.
I'm stupid.
I love you already Lyanna.
Why do I fall in love so easily?
I don't even care if you're Helena; your beauty doesn't faze me. I'd duel Paris just to get a kiss from you; I'd even kill Menelaus to free you from his obsession with being your husband.
I don't want to believe that you are the Persephone to my Hades; because I don't want to be obsessed with you for the remainder of my adult life.
Lyanna.
She stops me in front of the church and looks at me with those gullible yet tired eyes of hers. I could sense the need to make sure that I'm okay but what do I tell her?
That I love her? Insane.
That I want her? Ambitious.
That I need her? Obsessive.
That I want her to be the love of my life forever and ever till the end of time?
"You okay?" she asked me with that angelic voice of hers that tears through the fabric of my soul.
I smiled and nodded, "I feel fine now yeah…"
"You sure?" she asked while leaning a little bit closer to me.
"You're still red, you know."
I wanted her to kiss me. Like I'm in a fucking romance novella. Where the main characters fall in love after the first date. I have begged God to at least let me experience what it means to love her even for just a week. A month at most. Extend it to a year. Hell maybe even ten.
"Maybe just my skin." I replied.
"Anyways," I deflected after coughing, "where too smallass?"
She pouted and smacked me lightly in the arm, "asshole!"
I chuckled slightly knowing full well that her small stature does not match her misdemeanor that she's exhibiting.
"What? You look cute anyways. You'll pull it off."
It came out of me.
I didn't even think.
What in the fuck!?
"Stop the flattering asshole!" she turned her back on me playfully before laughing.
There were times I wished I had a ring in my pocket to which I wanted to propose. But alas, Love needs three things to bloom into something much greater than love, something much more indescribable, an emotion so infallible that to simply experience it already does it justice.
"Can you take a picture of me?" she asked as she pulled her phone out.
With Sanrio characters plastered all over the case, she unlocked it and put it into Camera; "Do you know?" she asked with a concerned tone.
"Just pose…"
She looked like she would have protested but agreed anyway.
As I took her photos, I hated the fact that she looks more mesmerizing in person than in any picture or photograph taken of her. There's just this different charm or appeal to her when she's beside you that you can never explain properly.
"What the hell!?"
I looked over to her after giving her phone back.
"These are amazing!" she exclaimed.
"I love them!" she looked at me with the widest smile in her face.