i keep falling in love with ideas of people rather than people themselves. i make people into who and what i need them to be in order to feel complete. there are many things i feel alone in doing (but this is not one of them). sometimes i scratch out the words of love stories and replace it with, "SHE WAS LONELY / SO SHE FELL IN LOVE / THE END." when i hear people tell stories about "how they first met" i hear them talk about the first date (not the desperation), the first kiss (not the fear of dying alone). i wish that people could be more honest about how they gave up -- the compromises they made to ensure that they would not die alone. i wish people could be more honest about the fear of dying alone. i wish that every date didn't feel like negotiating a life insurance policy. i want to hear love stories about compromise: how he was not handsome, how she was not compassionate, but how he was sturdy -- how his hands made you feel safe enough to go outside again. this is why i do not understand why romantic comedies are put in a different section than horror films. isn't there something alarming about a world that boils down to LOVE OR DIE? isn't there something terrifying about a world that separates us so deeply from one another that when we kiss it feels like the first time we are gasping air? as if we were drowning? maybe that is why we call it *falling* *in* love, as if love is an idea we fall into to the point that we are submerged and cannot escape. i don't want to have to fall in order to rise. i said: i do not want to have to fall in order to rise.
sometimes the world feels so overwhelming and cruel that i find myself running back to the ocean, find myself screaming, "I CAN BREATHE UNDER WATER." sometimes i need to believe in the impossible in order to survive.
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