I’m Not In Love, So Don't Forget It.

By: Dakota Taufeeq

Love, I’ve never been in it, always out of it. Looking at it from a distance, from the safety of my mind. Love is a dangerous thing, it takes the people that touch it, feel it, crave it, and rips their heart out. Why would I want to be a part of that? Still, despite my pleas I can't help but witness those close to me fall in the name of love. We can't all run from the monster. I know it's coming for me, and to be truthful, I don't know how long I will be able to hold it off. To help stave off my inevitable demise I have put up my barriers. If I say those three words (I love you), then I am opening myself up to get hurt; allowing someone to reach into my wounds, grab at my insecurities and scar me forever. However, if I don't say “I love you”, then the love that I thought I had would never count. If we decide to break each other's hearts, the pain won't be there because I never loved them in the first place; the words were never put out into the universe. With that, any feelings that I thought I had can and will be buried into oblivion. 

Love is animalistic. Maybe it isn't. Maybe that animalism is what love is missing; it's too human, it's too emotional. Gone is the simplistic goal of  “Love” now it consists of desperate displays of affection, unnecessary declarations of emotion. There is something about love that rubs me the wrong way. The way that people wear their hearts on the outside of their body, open for the world to have its way with it. It’s the vulnerability of it that gets to me. The vulnerability, how do people let themselves be that open? They let themselves drink the goblet of love, enchanted by its smell, drunk from its toxins. With each sip that they drink they become beaten down, evident by their bruises and broken bones. As they crawl away they don't crawl away from love. No. They crawl back to it, maybe slowly this time but crawling nonetheless.

I fear love. I guess love isn't mine to control, and the more I try to fight it the harder it will be. Love won't always be a parasitic monster, hell bent on sucking the life out of you. It can be something beautiful, a love where both partners are equal and have a mutual understanding of each other. I have to accept love, welcome it. I must remember that the wounds I will receive will heal with time and, that it's love itself that speeds up that process.