She Knows Love
She knows love. Oh, does she know love. Requited and unrequited, forbidden and sanctioned; love of family, of friends, the loving love of lovers in light and dark. She knows the rotting stench of dying love, the cold numbness of the absence of love. She has written volumes of poems and stories of love and then – when the love was too strong for ink and paper – went silent on the topic. She is bothered by the overuse and subsequent loss of meaning of the word: I love you, I love him, I love her, I love it. The same word to describe the heart’s emotion for one’s child and one’s new lipstick color. Love is serious and real, not a game, not a trend, not a phase – love is the consummate equivalent of life. She lives for love, does not let go of love, fosters embers of neglected past loves.
Her love is a raw and unfiltered form, insidious and caustic. It is part of her cellular process; the very creation of energy directed by it. She is at a loss, powerless against the intensity of it. There is no ground to stand on – ultimatums and lines in the sand a joke, nothing will change and even if she found the wherewithal to separate and not look back she will never know anything else but the deep vibrating hum of love.
She feels the chill of the death of love hovering at the nape of her neck. She cannot find confidence in the abyss – no amount of reassurance can console her.
The story of the Monkey’s Paw, all those parables of watch what you wish for, they haunt her with empathic ferocity. Here it is, the love everyone speaks of, dreams of, hopes for. The love that makes songs personal, the love that steals appetites and fells empires. It reminds her of the old rhyme:
Once there was a girl
Who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead
When she was good
She was very, very good
And when she was bad she was horrid
The entity that love is; when it is right, it is so very right. Real and comfortable and content; no boundaries, no corners, just smooth and warm and vibrant. But the volatility of love – in the flicker of an eyelash, the twitch of a mouth corner, suddenly all sharp edges and cold obstruction. It is exhausting, feeding the beast. The unpredictable nature of its appetite, the vehemence and drive required for satiety.
She knows love and maybe she does. Unconditional love with conditions. There is only today, right now, this moment, whatever this moment holds – the beauty or the beast. No promises, only the hovering threats of regret.
All languages have many words that mean the same thing, but love is just one word that means a lot of things. I love you, I love him, I love her, I love it, I love this pen and new underwear. With the same love she loves family and friends and things and him and most of all she loves love. Now that she really knows it, lives and breathes it, she loves it. She loves loving as much as she loves.