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Why is love, specifically romantic love, the center topic of many art?
How many of us actually experience the love we need?
How many of us actually understand ourselves enough to consciously seek the love we need?
How many of us are capable of expressing our true emotions?
How many of us are secure and strong enough to be vulnerable?
Are we longing for something so ideal that only exists in imagination?
Is it smarter to settle for something that feels lukewarm?
I don’t have answers.

I remembered thinking, what is so special about romantic love?
I associated romantic love with drama, manipulation and disruption.
I had room for none. I was ten.
I was determined that love was not going to ruin my dreams.
What is worth dying for, is freedom.
Love needs to get out of the way.

Then came puberty.
Along with it, boys and intoxicating brain chemicals.
I didn’t understand love much.
Being loved by a boy in many ways felt like being controlled.
Boys were stupid. I was too.
I loved being free and being my own person.
There was no one or nothing that could stop me from going after what I knew was right for me.
Love was weighing me down.
I was 18 then.

When I looked back and tried to understand some of my decisions to break up with someone,
it traced back to this feeling of being tied up, out of space, out of air.
I needed to run.
So I did.
I thought that was going to give me freedom.
It did, in ways I wasn’t expecting.
Love became a luring monster.
I wanted to be away and close to it.
I wanted to sit quietly alone by the ocean.
I wanted to tickle my lover’s face with eyelashes and hold hands.
I wanted both.

And I fell in love with the wrong person.
My world, my brain, my vision, my dream shrank.
I became so small that I could evaporate into thin air.
I had walked into a cage by accident.
Overtime, my wings were gently clipped and my feathers lost their sheen.
I had forgotten I belonged to the big blue sky.
I was angry at the face I saw in the mirror.
I wanted to kill her.
Love let me down.
I let love down.
This was all a tiny part of a grander play.

As life has it, I am free.
I feel free.
I am not running away.
Energy and space cleared up.
I am writing again.
Life makes sense to me.
I am someone I recognize.
I can fly. I remind myself that.

I am having a crush on someone at the moment.
I look at my emotions jump up and down.
I see myself doing the old dance.
I think – maybe it’s time to extend an invitation to dance together.

I check my phone more frequently.
His messages make me smile.
It happens when you like someone.
It is a mundane thing.
And I get to have silly giggles.

Love is not giving me flashy signals.
Life moves on.

I still want little to do with drama, manipulation and disruption.
Simplicity sounds so nice to me.
Of course it does, I want to fly.
So, light, is right for me.

Between love and freedom,
I choose freedom.
I want to remember that.
Will you remind me when I fall?

If I am lucky enough to find my weird bird to fly with,
I will know, love has called me home.