love

‘What is hell?’* I argue thus: ‘It is the suffering caused by not being able to love any more.’

That’s your job in this hard world, to keep your love alive and see that you get on, no matter what. Pull your act together and just go on.”

Anyone who’s ever shifted from general affection and enthusiasm for a lover to outright obsession knows what I mean: the relationship is just there, occupying a small corner of your heart, and then you wake up one morning and some indefinable tide has turned forever and you can’t go back.

It was like falling in love—the things that get you are so small, the things that keep you up at night are so particular to you that when you try to explain, the only reward anyone can give you is a dumb polite nod.

This is the only way I know how to tell someone what I want, to describe the infinitely unfolded accordion of my heart. To love with a rage gone blind from the knowledge of the stolen lands, dirty wars, honor killings, false idols, forced soldiers, and buried throats haunting every sentence. Too many truths setting my retinas ablaze, and me mad, ma

It let me know I’d be taken care of when the need became too strong. When you love somebody, or something, it’s amazing how willing you are to overlook the flaws.

Love was paring myself down, again and again, until I was as smooth as a block of new marble, ready to become whatever the next one needed me to be.

What wouldn’t you do to be held? Don’t tell me you’ve never taped shut your own mouth.