There is a kind of love that drags itself, gut-shot and with two broken legs towards death. It has no pride, or shame, or sense of self. It refuses all other loyalties, all other promises and obligations. There is nothing pretty about this kind of love. It turns those of us who have felt it into abominations. It only has one limitation and that is of reciprocation. Sometimes, not even that.
This is not the love of romance novels; there is no happy ending. Either you die still feeling it, or it kills you. Perhaps not physically, but for all practical purposes, it hollows you out like worm-infested fruit. It leaves you an empty, paper-thin container of a human being.
But before it has the grace to leave you empty, you have to endure its hunger. It renders every philosophical discussion on the subject absurd. From Plato’s Symposium to Kant or Hegel, the attempt to harness reason to serve its exploration is just a laughable, pathetic deferral. It is beyond reason, beyond ethics. This love is not good or ethical. It exists in a place where those concepts are meaningless.
This is the kind of love that scares us, and so it should. Neither altruistic nor selfish, neither harmonious nor nurturing, it will crawl blindly but inexorably across every line of civility ever drawn by any culture.
It doesn’t seek the perpetuation of the species. It is desire of flesh only because the sufferer is trapped in flesh. Mouths and hands, cocks and cunts are nothing more than the clumsy tools of the language it is forced to speak in the flesh. It is of the mind only because it cannot integrate itself in the here and now without it. Fantasies and imaginings are only the shadows on the Platonic cave. This love knows it must manifest itself through shadows, but it also knows how false they are. It rails against the futility of its outlets and, because of that, it is insane and violent and at the same time utterly self-sacrificing.
This is a love that is out of fashion. It is metaphysical, uncommodifiable, unphotogenic. It tolerates no impermeable self, no measuredness, no recovery. It is a black hole. It eats worlds. And, if it doesn’t terrify you, you’ve never felt it.
I managed to escape from a love like that with my self in tatters. Never ever again.
Morning, good read young lady. I got up to read your post. Now there is no reson to stay awake. Nite nite love :))))))))))))))))))))
Obsessive love. The not-at-all-innocent of my affection informed me, “You’re obsessed.” I replied, “That doesn’t mean I’m not in love.” We were lovers in every decade of our lives but the first, and the one we’re in now. I know where he is, he knows who I am and where I am. I’m afraid he won’t resist because I won’t be able to resist if he doesn’t.
He said, “I will always love you. I will always make love to you.” The last time, he did not make love to me, he hurt me. And still, I wasn’t done.
He blocked my phone calls and had my mail returned, stamped REFUSED BY ADDRESSEE.
That, finally, broke my heart. Eventually I was loved by a good man. Luck, on my part. He fixed me. I hope I stay fixed forever.
I can honestly say I’ve never felt like that. Oh, I’ve had my heart broken, but it never felt like that. Thank goodness.
Young love, common, a raging fire that burns bright. The match is easily struck, fueled by the propellants of the physical.
The obsessive torments of the spirit, these hidden coals glow… deep… hot… within… for eternity,
I really liked this and I wish I could offer a worthwhile response but I’m still too bruised from my brush with this kind of ‘love’.
I will say, on the upside, iit didn’t kill me, it just took a dose of pneumonia for me to focus on myself and how I wanted to be and to make me change from habits that were making me miserable. I found there was someone more important to me than my object of desire and in the process I found some level of calm.
Lucky me I guess.
Some kinds of ‘love’ you just can’t stand inside for your own sake, not having any ethics, morals, etc is not a ‘good’ kind of love. And that’s not to take away from who you were in love with, you just can’t do it anymore because sooner or later you have to realize what it’s doing to you and self-determine. It becomes a choice, them or you.
Oh God.
This is the only thing I’ve ever read that rings true in the language I think in.
Read this and wondered – seriously, curiously, jealously almost – if you have known love like this, how is it that you got to keep your eloquence, to keep language, and the desire to use it.
Easy. I’m single.
I’m in this. Right now. I am no better than an addict, but my addiction is him. I try to tear myself away, but there I am again, in his eyes. I can never stop myself. And each time, I shatter just a little more. I wonder if I’ll ever break free and if I do, what will be left of me?
There will be just as much left as when you started. It just doesn’t feel like that right now. Nor should it.
When you’ve crawled out and you find yourself gasping and reeling on the other side of this … love.
You’re left hollow , the juice of life has been drained.
Everything that has held meaning has been stripped .
Still you get back up , you try desperately to find something… anything that make you feel alive.
It’s too late .. the bar has been set.