Tell me about love.

A battleground I’ve made of myself since we experienced the first vague notions of attraction at a young age. Our first love was our best (and for a long time only) friend, the second a relentless bully who made a game out of our infatuation, the third not much more than an idea shrouding a girl who rarely ever looked my way. And this pattern has chased us across two decades and through every relationship. My perception of my value and worth has become the biggest blockade in my attempts at actualizing my deepest goals.

So, tell me about love.

Right now, in this stage of healing, every day incites a new challenge making me question the value of change. I’m left wondering way too often if bringing the person I have always dreamt of being into fruition is worth it when I’ve been faced with more inadequacy, frustration, and disappointment than anything. Right now, the closest thing to love I know is the delusions I’ve gotten comfortable sitting in, fanciful stories of starstruck romance and the easy integration into a community of my own. Fairytales made lie by the promise that they might one day come true. Limerence has become my single salve to reality even when I recognize it is poison I’m massaging into my soul. Daydreams turning everything bland sending me into an asocial cycle that sends me farther away from what I really want.
So, tell me about love.

Tell me all its truths. All the pain and ache and effort required to make it real. Next time I need to do it right, bring fantasy to life in a way that is healthy and freeing. So much of what I thought was love so far has been heartache and disappointment. But I believe, in the deepest part of my soul knows that one day the trying will mean everything.

So, tell me about love.

Because all I can hope for you that it is in abundance. And the closest I think I’ve come to love is all I’ve tried to give to you.