...until someone loses their heart.


Sitting down with the intent of putting a host of chaotic, conflictino thoughts into some construct that fits neatly between the confining edges of a written language seems to be a fool's errand at the moment, but seeing as I am obviously a fool, perhaps that is fitting.
   I have tried on several occasions to chronicle the events of the past year and a half that have led me to this point in my life, but every time I have made the attempt, recalling each moment that may have been pivotal, I have found myself questioning the very nature of the beast I seem constantly locked in battle with.  To quote the great warrior Sun Tzu, "if you do not know your enemy, half the battle you fight is against yourself."  I question whether or not I truly know love, for it is that most ancient of creatures whose jaws threaten my heart.
   Once, perhaps, in the more naive years of my life, I might have held faith in the concept that love is a grand thing which could topple mountains and conquer armies for the sake of something simple and pure and good.  Now, though I may still have many years ahead of me to learn that I am wrong, I have seen that love is never simple, rarely pure and that in the wrong situation, it can be anything but good.
   I am tainted; filthy with love.  Maybe in the beginning, it was something more akin to what the poets speak of - noble and pure - a constant light that could make even the darkest of hours seem a warm summer's day with its mere existence.  I fear this is no longer the case.  Tendrils of resentment, jealousy, fear and a deep-seated disappointment have crept their way across what once seemed a bastion of hope and have sullied any reaction that might be elicited from its sanctuary.
   What seems an eternity ago, I looked into that pristine dwelling of love and found there a reflection of myself, but cleaner, more vibrant, as if by merely having looked into that place I had found a way to remove some of the tarnish of my life and return a better version of myself than I believed could exist.  But now...now that silvery surface seems pitted and cracked, as if ravaged by the tides of eternity.  At times, I can still catch a glimmer of that better self, but more often, there is a shadow on the image; a reflection of the hurt and the bitterness that have taken up residence in the house where love lives.  Would that I could step inside and strip that mirror clean once more, but as anyone who has ever felt love in their life intrinsically knows, the doors inside your own heart are forever locked to you.  You might look in from time to time, but you can never go inside and you have no control over which people get the keys.