in the midst of all these roaring movies of apocalypses, i feel compelled to think about how i would feel about  falling in love. perhaps these days spend in the haze of anesthetized heartache would suddenly seem even more beautiful.

perhaps i would suddenly remember with more fondness than disdain the mornings when the sunlight is just turning from grey to amber and i feel all of myself ache for arms around me, when i can't hear anything but the fan turning, and the house sighing from the summer heat. perhaps i would think back with disbelief on these moments spent swearing to myself that love is an awful, monstrous thing, that i wish to never fall in love again.

perhaps silently i would plead, like jack gilbert's prayer, for another chance: "Let me fall / in love one last time, I beg them / Teach me mortality, frighten me / into the present. Help me to find / the heft of these days."

shh, quiet, there it is.  i can hear it beginning again.

* * *

I cannot count the times I have cursed my lack of urgency. If ever I love again, I will not wait to love as best as I can. We thought we were young and that there would be time to love well sometime in the future. This is a terrible way to think. It is no way to live, to wait to love. - Dave Eggers