On Love

What is love? I used to think that it was comfort and affection and interest bundled with compatibility. Is it chemicals, coursing through us inducing us to populate the world, not for looking for quality, for intelligence, for beauty but for mere quantity; bear children until the calcium leeches out of your bones and you crumple in upon yourself? If that love? Are fairy tales just warnings to young girls and boys to not expect much out of the world of cruelty but to still hope for more; because without that hope our species will die? Is that my life? My plans, are the all crumpling in upon calcium leeched bones and flesh which once was taut? Will I wish once again, that I were a child, that I could start over, that I could as myself without worry of other impressions? Will I wonder after I’m married if I made a mistake? Will I ever get married? Will I have children that have my eye or my hair or my wry humor? Will I be godmother and maiden aunt to children whom I can hold but never have? Will my writing comfort me in the night as I cry or will it fuel the hurt and need, making me write more, want more, wish more to be more anything more, more beautiful, more brilliant, more sane, more perfect, more lovable, more deserving. Will I live in the desert alone or will someone share it with me, share my solitude, my hurt, my desire. It is raining. Around me I can hear those in my apartment building moving, humming as they sit at their computers and study, listening to music, practicing guitar. Did part of my die when I was so young I could not understand what was happening. Was the part which died the part which knew how to love, knew how to laugh, knew how to be content, blissful, happy, warm, vibrant, leaving only a commanding presence which I have cultivated. I am only a presence now, a ghost with words pouring through my teeth and lips wishing that rhyme or music or thought would solve my life with a smile set to keep them barred in. Am I a ghost of what could be loved?