Love

Nothing had told me about love. Nothing. Not a book I'd read, not a movie I'd seen, not people canoodling in the park. Nothing had told me about its darkness or its dread. Nothing had warned me about its desolation. It is only now that I know that romance is an escape from love. Love is the coarse grain, the jagged edge, doubt, pain; the bitter rasp of salt that makes the world real again.

Other peoples loves are sordid or rendered sacred by their very misery or perfection. But one's own is nothing so untouchable. Nothing can make it disgusting. Nothing can make it holy. It's the skin that contains you, and you never realise it until it's peeled away.

It wasn't his fault that things went bad the way they did. It's mine. Or maybe that's what happens when you love someone. You want to give him all your pain. He doesn't want it. You trot out all your bogeys, spell out terrors you've never dared breathe before. You want him to exorcise you.

What would happen if he actually did? If my devils were to leave me, what would they leave behind? Bereft of them, who am I?

Perhaps it's a kindness that one is never exorcised.