Love resurrects me every time I’ve died…even though it’s also killed me. Love makes my tears seem joyful, and makes me silent when I would protest. It lifts me up, it drags me down, and it keeps me in one place. It is the universal constant- constantly changing. It is found in friends, in enemies: Hate is so close to love. Humans love so freely. Animals, plants, things, other humans- love is found everywhere.  I recognize it. But I refuse to accept it.

How can I say it when it is all these things? There is nothing love is not. But I refuse it. It is not concrete, my mind is over trained, and you cannot define love. No one can say ‘I love you’ because no one can define love. There are no words. ‘Love’ itself is an inadequate term to describe what, by all accounts, is indescribable? Is this, perhaps, why that cliché rings so hollow in my ears? The only emotions that run hard and fast through my veins are neither as honorable as love is supposed to be, nor as pleasant. Lust, hatred, and grief are all feelings I have experienced most sharply, and can vividly remember. But all ‘love’ calls to mind is plastic…plastic and fake and wrong.

Love needs a better spokesperson. You’d think Cupid would have changed his look by now. People are merrily following his dictums, so enthralled with their current loves that they don’t have the time or inclination to open their eyes. I know- love has thus ensnared me. Because tragic experiences- heartbreak, suicide, and the like- are frequently products of dead love or love that burned to fiercely, does it not stand to reason that what the victims of those circumstances had experienced was not love? Love should not demand such a high price. Love should be something different. Love should not be love…

The closest I have ever felt to love is hatred. From intense hatred can spring intense love. The bond of hatred between to people is clear, unlike a bond of love. There is no question and there are no varying degrees of hatred. However, when two people are bitter enemies, there is an attraction. Something pulls them together. Chemistry, magnetism, gravity, no one really knows. But it happens, invariably. And once again love confuses the issue.

It may be a good thing. Without this human brand of love we would all be happy. And when people are content, that is when the greatest tragedy always strikes.

But what about perfect love? Love between humans is so often flawed and so often ends badly with bitter feelings (indeed, love often leads to hate, even as hate leads to love.). Perfect love cannot exist anymore in a world full of cynics; by my unbelief, I prevent its occurrence. However, the world has lost more than a belief in perfect love, and the world has done more than settle for less. The world has forgotten or denied the magic of love. We call it chemistry. Chemistry is science. Science does not allow for such unpredictable variables as emotions. I type this essay on a computer and watch my words transformed into black letters on a white background when in my mind they burn in red and orange and shine blindingly. Emotion seethes behind these words, but a computer cannot take that into account. Even now I worry over my grammar, my spelling. And the computer points out these imperfections to me in case I should miss them. I have no connection with these words once the keyboard douses their fire. I have no love for them. They now say only what the dictionary has proclaimed. But to hear a person- real flesh and blood- speak them, or anything else that has only previously been typed- that comes very close to love within me.