Love In 900 words

I hate those small phrases that never seem to be enough to accurately convey the vast seas of liquid emotion I harbor inside me. I feel at times as if I am walking around with a universe inside my heart, both beautiful and infinite but also a vast and deadly, empty nothingness. I want to tell you what happens when I look at you or when you touch me. I need you to understand that when I burst out with the “L” word it is only such a very small and insignificant label attached to a wrecking ball that has to break free. I don’t know if this is what you call love. I don’t know what you feel or what you think. All I can do is paint a picture…

All I know is that there is an uplifting wave and a sense of unbearable freedom that barely lets me keep my panicky feet attached to the ground beneath me when I get to see you. Sometimes I feel as if time will stop and I will be pulled softly, yet firmly away with no say or control over my destination or path. Cold and warmth emanate from my body simultaneously shooting temperature hurricanes through my veins. The air in my lungs is struck as burning ice causing me to hastily expel air in ragged, short breaths as snowflakes in a blizzard. Millions of small cartoon hearts beat in a fluttery torrent inside my chest cavity, threatening to surge out and divulge everything to you in one swift and precise act of treachery of the highest form. My laden yet uplifted heart cries out in joy and booms with amorous firecrackers the very millisecond that you flash a smile. Looking to your eyes, an inescapable invasion of memories both benign and malignant rises up as if on command from an inner file cabinet of my mind that secretly logged every instant we were together, playing back the pain and elation of our past on a dusty movie screen. Of the army of motivations taking arms against me, my control slips between my grasping fingers, smiling back at you as if I am stuck frozen with a ridiculous grin. Just being close to you renders my mouth nervously dry and useless. Where once stood a gifted wordsmith now lays a hopeless hot mess of a squishy and mute, emotionally-constipated wreck. Fluctuating, beating rhythms resonate in the thick, miles-deep gorge of silence separating us. In those few moments without speech countless ideas are violently thrust to my attention begging, screaming to be released into the void between you and me. My heart plays Russian roulette, with every touch the chance of expressing the hated “L” word compounds. The very struggle of willing this tidal wave to settle leaves me haggard and exhausted.

At the same second, though, there is this immense cloud that looms overhead and bears down on my shoulders. The ominous fog that hovers above my red, giggly face serves as a constant reminder to me that no matter how I feel or how far the featherlike experience may carry me there is an end to the lonely road. This foreboding presence helps to keep me grounded but also brings lightning rods attracting painful strikes to this happiness and igniting a destructive fire that culls the thoughts of my heart. Invisible bricks encase my consciousness in a room alone in the back of my mind with only my fears and insecurities to keep me company. Silence rings loudly in my ears and slowly sinks to the pit of my stomach making me feel a little sick and hesitant. I hate that we don’t talk more. Whenever I leave you I walk away knowing that could be the last time I ever see you again. This familiarity tears a hole in the fabric casing of my heart and leaves a gushing gash that takes weeks to even begin to mend. The scars will always remain and the wound will never fully heal, but the few, brief flashes of euphoria with you are well worth the crippling agony of leaving you behind knowing you will never be truly mine. I only borrow you, a truth that is somber at best. It is difficult to remember that we are but simply playing our parts in this bittersweet dance that will ultimately end all too soon.

Do not feel badly. I entered into whatever this is with an open mind and heart. I chose not to guard myself and to tear down my fortified walls. I wanted to let you through the locked door to my eager heart. I wanted you to see the deep and dark parts of me, the exact cobwebbed corners of all that comes together to make me who I am. I wanted to show you that I was real with inlets of black called faults in my soul like everyone else. I needed you to see that you make me happy, that you bring with you pure, unaltered pleasure that can burn as a fire bringing life to barren wastes. I know you are not mine. I cannot have you. You are loved, though, and THAT is something worth hurting for. YOU are worth every moment of pain, every emotional blow, and every day of the agony of missing you while knowing you were always only ever borrowed…