Home Poetry On Love: a Disease…

On Love: a Disease…

by Stephanie Alfaia

Drunken confusion. Dark. 

Dark. 
Silent, 
Thoughts – 4:37am.
How did I get here?

What am I thinking? You? Again? Get out of my head. Now. Leave me alone.

Frustration. 
Andy Warhol. Life: “A series of images that change as they repeat themselves.” 
Here I am, repeating again. 
Where is will power? Come, help me. 

This was not part of the plan. MY plan. You don’t belong here. These feelings don’t belong.
I pushed you away, it works every time. 
“Don’t be sweet to me.”
“Stop being nice to me.”
“I don’t need this.”
Why didn’t you listen?

This isn’t love. 
This is nothing. Confusion, mere confusion.
You cannot have unrequited feelings – again. Routine. Get out of the routine. Stop. 

Love, love, love. No. I have mentality vaccinated myself. I am immune. You are contagious. Leave.
Why did I drink this much? 
Who was she?
Meaningless greetings exchanged, there is nothing there. Illusion. Oh, horrid illusion!
Stop. You are not a Bronte. No candlelit bathtub and Frank Sinatra this time. There is nothing to suffer for.
There is nothing to dwell on.
A person who is incapable of honesty cannot be trusted.
Ramblings, all incoherent. Slow down, I don’t understand what you’re telling me. These thoughts don’t make sense.
What am I thinking?

The booze. The man. No, the boy. The kiss – those weren’t my lips.

Feelings – symptoms. Love: a disease.  
Love creeps slowly, in a contagious manner, slyly taking over, possessing thoughts, dreams, mood. It goes beyond – it doesn’t settle with taking over the heart, no. Greedy as it is, it must take over the mind, the soul, the physical need for food.  I’m hungry. No I’m not hungry.

Love keeps people from eating, from sleeping, from living. Wait, that’s unrequited love. Master Shakespeare famously rambles on and on about this – unrequited. But I am far too intoxicated to quote.

Love gnaws at your thoughts, consumes to a point where nothing else matters except the source of said love. Or am I describing obsession? But isn’t love an obsession? Isn’t love that suffocating feeling when you think you’ll never kiss the person again, touch them again, hear their voice, smell their scent… isn’t that love? Now, it seems I’m having trouble defining. 

Love isn’t always unconditional, no, it can be temporary. 
How to describe something so powerful?
I cannot see it.
I cannot smell it.
I cannot hear it.
I cannot taste it.
I cannot feel it.
Have i felt it?

Your eyes look into mine, they show me what others don’t see. A side you don’t share. I see you.
Your smell is intoxicating. The cologne blends with your skin in a sweet, arousing way. I smell you.
Your voice, ever so rough, deep, sarcastic. Jokes, insults, sweet, tender words of nothing. I hear you.
Your lips in mine, I am Juliet. You are not Romeo. But they taste like the first day of summer. I taste you.
Your hand in mine, I resist. Public show of affection. I cannot. And now I crave your touch. I feel you.
Yes, this is it.
It is real.
This is proof.
The senses – science. 
I can prove it.

I can transcribe my symptoms. 
-Anxiety 
-Lack of hunger
-Lack of sleep
All over the mere possibility, the mere curiosity towards whether or not the person feels the same way. 

If only we all walked around with signs.
Give me a sign!
Place one on your heart. “Yes I feel the same way.” “No, I don’t feel the same way.” A tattoo. 
A simple sign that would change so much.

I’m not one to dwell on unrequited love. No, I understand that the heart chooses, not the mind. My mind is well aware of whom I SHOULD love. Yet, rebellious as she is, the person I should will never suffice. No, she must succumb to my heart. My treacherous and gullible heart, who never listens to the wisdom my mind has to share. The heart is fragile, gullible, easy, pliable. Yes, pliable, that’s the perfect term. A heart will bend, contort, even change, all to please the person it beats for. 

No, I don’t love him. But I am now realizing, here, sitting alone, at the brink of never hearing or seeing him again, that I, more than like him.

Closure. Give me closure. 
I need to be thoroughly hurt in order to move on. Am I a masochist? Maybe.
Tell me you don’t feel the same way, tell me to leave you alone. 
Men are so scared of saying that, but they don’t realize it’s their only sure way out. 

A human being deserves to know. It’s the only cure. Truth is the only cure to this disease. First symptom: feelings, progresses to devour your psyche and then it becomes love. I must stop it. 

I’ve exposed myself as I never have before. Pushed to a point of no return. 

Part of me wants to get hurt, that way I know I can feel. I didn’t know I was capable of feeling… not like this. This crazy need to get my way. To win. Win what?! What is anyone really winning or losing in “the game?”

He read it, and did not respond. Again. 

Coward. Jerk. How dare you come into my life. How dare you affect my thoughts. Disgusting. Pathetic. Child. How can you string me along? Cruel. Waste of time. Pain. Suffocating. Games. Why the games? Are you no man without them? Unnecessary. Be honest… Stop thinking. New subject. Let it go. No, he couldn’t respond. Ignorant fuck. Pity. The mind has no control over the heart. No one’s fault. Love is to blame. That morbid, visceral disease. Disgusting. I need water.


© 2013 Stephanie Alfaia Gomes All Rights Reserved

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