my whole life, i’ve been told that love is infinite and unconditional. that love works in strange and mysterious ways. that love comes only when it's ready. 

 

correct me if i’m wrong, but that sounds a tad bit selfish, no? that we all have to wait around for love. that it’s up to us to stay calm and patient while waiting for that one girl we see everyday in class to finally look your way. as if when her green eyes, green enough to challenge the world’s lushest forests, meet your muddy brown ones, love will notice that it’s skipped a person.

 

i mean, it’s not like i have forever to wait around for love to smack me with a heart shaped arrow and declare me ‘taken’. if love comes only when loves ready, what happens if i die while waiting in line? 

 

and if love is so magical and so special, then why does it hurt so much when i don’t even have it yet? a part of me crumbles and cracks everytime i hear her name, my heart turning to stone as if she’s medusa and the snakes are the closet i’ll ever get to being wanted. every step that she takes cuts into my skin, like my blood is the price i have to pay for love to check my name off the list. 

 

it’s the small things they say. it’s what comes from the heart that matters they say. well my gift to you is every piece of me love has torn off to feed itself, every tearduct love has dranken empty and raw, every bruise love has crafted personally, and every particle of oxygen love has sucked out of my lungs.

 

and i want to ask; is love even real? is this not a mirage, a sick game i’m being forced to participate in, a game where she’s both the other team and the referie. is love attainable? is it attainable for me? am i allowed to have love? or is it some thing, some fragment of my imagination that will forever stay cold and dusty behind it’s glass box?

 

can i be in love without having it for myself?

 

now, it’s the time where you nod your heads, shoot me a sympathy smile because the answers to all the worlds problems are written in the gleams on your teeth, and tell me to prioritize self love. if i’m not worthy of her love, how the hell am i worthy of my own? what, am i better than her? do i have higher standards? i thought people grow because people challenge them? well if this is a challenge then i must really suck at it because i’m losing badly.

 

what do i have to do to get love to notice me? tell me, i’ll do it. 

 

L is for loneliness, a snake that swallows you whole so quickly that you don’t even feel yourself grow numb from the venom injected into you.

 

O is for obstacles that refuse to go down, that tower over you like the walls of jericho, only no amount of noise can make them fall.

 

V is for vapid because you have to be so stupid to think that she will ever like you back.

 

E is for everyday, everyday that your heart grows heavier and love grows smugger, your tears and blood writing love letters from every romantic sap to every broken soul.

 

but it’s all worth it right? i mean, love only exists because we made love exist, so it has to be here for something, right? i’m not hurting for nothing, right? we aren’t hurting for nothing, right?

 

love will find us someday, right?