Love Will Knock You Down

One day you will kiss the wrong person hello because you are eager not to feel alone. The kiss will be plastic and there will be no spark but you will stay anyway. A hand held remains warm for a while, even if there is no fire. You are tired of being cold.

One day you will fall for the wrong line because you are a lover of words that weave their way through your soul and make themselves at home in your heart. You collect these words in clips and phrases so they fit into your memories until they have grown sour with time. You will try to tear them out of your past and out of your mind but you cannot keep them from their home. This is something you will learn to understand because you know words are more than “just words”: they are moments and ideas that expressed something you thought would never be captured, and yet there it was. Hold onto that even if it hurts.

One day you will leave the “right one” for the wrong reasons. You will wake every day wishing you could take it all back, but what’s done is done. Find comfort in the fact that there will be a time you will leave the “wrong one” for the right reasons.

One day you will hold back an apology you should have said. This will be the apology that floats like a tumbleweed through your body, resurfacing when you let your mind wander back to all the times you could have said those words but bit your tongue with pride instead. Learn to say sorry; learn to set yourself free.

One day you will promise someone a premature “I love you” because you want so badly for that to be true. However, love cannot be forced. You can make yourself say the words but you cannot make your heart feel something it does not. One day you will figure that out, but not before somebody gets hurt.

One day you will bleed from pain caused by someone you care for. May the offense be little or large, your blood will spill the same way tears fall: slowly at first and then faster and faster until there is nothing left for you to offer. From the middle of the pool you will cry out, but no one will hear you. There you will sit until you learn to stand on your own two feet once more. When you stand again you are strong, but not immune.

Use that strength to start over.