Bricks and Feathers

How does one just fall in love?

Is love truly a hole that one trips and stumbles into? While on a lovely walk through the forest of life, does one misstep lead to a rumbling of the ground, a sliding of leaves and branches and suddenly one finds oneself at the bottom of a hole with no way out? The sun's shining in the hole, true, and it's a gorgeous day-- but nevertheless, one is stuck in that hole for, well, forever?

I believe that this is incorrect. With love one is not always aware that one has fallen into it. If one has fallen into a hole it is immediately apparent, and if it is not then one should get one's eyesight and mental functions checked at the earliest convenience.

I propose, then, that love falls on us, though it is not always a ton of bricks falling upon one's head. Oft' love trickles so gently and so subtly into one's heart like a mild summer rain that one doesn't notice that one is in love (or wet) until someone else points it out. "Excuse me sir, but are you in love?" "No, miss, I-- Oh god, I think I am!"

Perhaps love is instead like a predator. Rain and holes are both mostly pleasant metaphors for a very often unpleasant thing. Love can hunt one down and strike when one least expects it-- coming from behind while one's trousers are down and one is half-asleep on the edge of a campsite in the dead of night. Or while picking flowers in a deserted meadow, and love bites one on the foot like a deranged natural ant. Love floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee, indeed.

Is it not, then, safe to assume that no one is safe from love? For while one may hope to avoid rain or holes or predators in one's life, and with careful, cautious living may actually triumph over one of these obstacles, the simple fact of life is that one cannot avoid rain and holes and predators. While walking in a field one may find a path devoid of holes, and so may avoid these. But on the path a predator comes along, and so one scurries up the nearest tree to avoid. Assuming this is a lazy predator with no inclination to climb trees then one is safe. While safe from both holes and predators high up in that tree, one may be certain of one thing: when it rains, you'll be the first to know.

BBC

What's with all pretense? Honesty was so easy to take hold of but it seems to slip away, and I can't make sense of the way people change. Why turn back to doubt and discontent when you have truth right in front of you? Linked finger to finger, hook to hook; held together by all that is right and some of what's wrong, what's the point of nonsense? Tell me your truth and I'll tell you mine. No more "just" or "I guess" or "maybe, baby". Open your mouth and let the truth fly out and I can't blame you, I can't forgive you (there's nothing to forgive, don't you fucking see?)

Upside and inside out, and we're here-- this is life, it's school and a job and day to day and hour by hour and homework and studying and texting and numbing, and wondering "Now that I'm here, what the fuck was all the hype about?" It's driving home from work and realizing that the sun is out and it's fucking gorgeous, and that splendor lies in solitude and solitude in splendor, and that if you never submit your poems how will they be published? It's Smoky Man's despair and realizing he's just like you (he's so much like you it hurts, and you almost fall in love) and when you see his transparent power and his fearful power, and his power borne from fear you lose it, just a little.

It's laundry and laundry and more fucking laundry-- doesn't anyone else ever fucking do the fucking laundry? I mean, not that I'm complaining, because I'd rather do the laundry than do the bloody dishes but still, you dirty-clothed bastards. It's the constant counting up of money and income, counting and recounting and checking these numbers because this is my money, my paycheck, my fucking life and no one else is gonna do it, y'know?

It's debate about everything, and I'm so ready to fight: for my rights as a Mexican-American, for my rights as a woman, for my rights as a lover of women. For my rights as a human being. It's writing and finding time to spend with people, and garnering that motivation to finish my fucking homework after work and school, and my license test on Friday-- it's buying my own damn car because I don't get things like that handed to me, I don't get anything handed to me anymore. It's choosing my education over money and fear, and fears about money.

It's making plans and realizing that while my parents give good advice they don't have to agree with what I do, and I don't need their approval. It's moving out by my next birthday and living in a city I've been to once, maybe twice by that time; but I want to and that's enough, that's all, that's IT.