Love - Does it exist?

 Do you wish for love?

Do you fantasize of love?

Walking down the aisle into your beloved’s arms?

We believe that our scars will be healed by our beloved.

That one day someone would come,

Who would love you more than you love yourself,

And show you that even your ugliest parts are to be worshipped.

Someone who would cuddle with you, hug you tight,

Hear you cry and in a soothing tone comfort your fears,

And kiss your forehead, whispering sweet nothings.

You think that you would be the happiest with that person,

Your heart will overflow with warmth and your chest will expand with joy.

Even if you claim you are cold and heartless and it doesn’t exist,

You secretly wish for it and want it.  

But love is so difficult…

The most wanted and the most elusive,

The most sought after but never reciprocated,

How does love even work?

And why are we so obsessed about finding it?

It is like without it our lives are empty and barren,

We feel that once we find it, we shall be happy forever.

Right from our childhood we are dreaming of our prince charming or our pretty princess,

Or if you swing both ways, then prince and princess!

Fantasizing about marrying Mr. Right or Miss. Right

Is this right?

Starting from Disney movies to fairytales,

Who will come and fix all my problems,

From teen romances to mills and boons,

The one to save me from myself,

The one who would love every bit of you,

From movies to music, dramas to books,

It is ironic that majority of our content revolves around love,

A civilization who can go to the moon,

Ironically places the most importance on love…

We keep searching for our soulmate,

Only to never find one.

We get in and out of relationships,

We fall in love quickly and out of love even more quickly,

The weird quirks once we loved soon become intolerable,

The once Mr./Miss Right becomes Mr./Miss Horribly Wrong.

So much for soulmates, for love at first sight,

It goes from I can’t live without you to I can’t live with you.

And at these times you wonder is love this fickle?

We say love heals all, love conquers all, love is undying and unending,

But this same love transforms into something dark,

Possessive behaviors, losing yourself, stalking, cheating, and the list goes on,

All in the name of love.

And then the illusion of our childhood breaks,

We go from love exits to love doesn’t exist.

Does it exit?

Is there any proof?

The immortal love stories?

Aren’t they works of fiction?

Isn’t fiction all about writing about what you want, but can’t have.

Fiction is an escape from reality, it isn’t supposed to be realistic.

Is fiction inspired from reality or reality inspired from fiction?

Is entire mankind’s notion of love built on what it should be, rather than what it is?

And then when you are ready to give up on this concept,

Whispers of a true love story emerges,

And you try to grasp onto the one branch of hope,

Oh! Look at that real-life example!

Maybe I am being too negative.

Or maybe you are being delusional?

Maybe arranged marriages are a social construct,

So that people won’t end up lonely…

That sounds about right.

Maybe marriages are a social construct,

So that you would have someone,

Even if you both hate each other,

You stick together,

For the kid,

Or maybe because you don’t want to live alone.

It is a complex question, isn’t it?

Would you stay with someone you don’t love?

Just so that you would not be alone?

Who would do that you might ask?

Well, the average number of partners in USA for men and women is 7.2

In India, it isn’t norm…yet, because of social construct.

Why aren’t we happy alone?

Is love worth it?

Maybe caregiving is wired in our heads,

The stone-age man needed company to survive,

If you were alone, you were as good as a tiger’s meal,

So, is it 5000 years of social conditioning?

You are never alone, though you have friends and family,

We want to be the star of someone’s eyes,

We want to feel important,

that there is one person,

Whose life revolves around me,

Who would miss me,

Pine for me,

Put me first,

And I would do the same, and we would complete each other.

You are mine and I am yours, and no one else. Only mine. Mine.

The hero proclaims he would do anything for the heroine. Anything, even kill.

 Maybe glorify love,

In real life, I find it difficult to believe,

Call me cynical,

After I am my own person, before belonging to someone else.

However, we change ourselves for the people we love.

Fit into their types.

Check their boxes.

We become their person.  

Love is skin-deep,

You try to make yourself more pretty, more handsome,

Maybe more blush, maybe a different haircut,

I need to be thin, I need abs,

Fashionable clothes, a bit of that eyeliner too,

How else do you think those products are selling?

I love me for me, but I am not sure that the other person loves me for me.

And despite saying all that,

We do it, quite consciously,

Because we still want love,

Desperately. Even if you deny it vehemently.

They say love is forever,

However, we know forever is a lie,

Change is the only constant,

But let this be forever,

We want it as we think it is forever,

Because families fall apart, friends drift apart,

Only love stays,

Someone whom you can depend on,

Who would never leave,

No matter what.

I don’t know if we can have it,

It sounds too good to be true,

But we all want it,

Maybe we want it because it is so elusive,

Hope, we survive on hope,

Maybe one day,

We will get it.

And that is why we fantasize,

Of meeting the perfect person,

Of the proposal, of walking down the aisle,

We daydream of the vacations, of growing old together,

Because isn’t love a wonderful thought?

So sunny and bright,

So happy and promising,

So lovely, so beautiful.

Ah, someone to share you joy and grief with,

Filled with laughter,

Lingering touches and stolen kisses,

Staring into each other eyes,

Exploring the galaxies hidden inside each other,

Even the very presence of someone having a calming effect of you.

It is a wonderful feeling, isn’t it?

So sweet, so innocent,

Someone to spend your entire life with,

To start a family with that one,

Who will share your life,

Who will be with you in health and sickness,

The promise of seven generations.

The red thread of love that binds two souls,

From sizzling passion to comfortable silence,  

From exciting journeys to reading quietly,

And I hope you do,

I hope you find your Romeo or your Juliet,

And you story will be as immortal as theirs,

And maybe not that ill-fated.  

I hope we get that kind of love,

Where love is undying, where love isn’t skin-deep,

Where love is pure and innocent and sweet,

Where love is about making the effort,

To keep a person happy,

I hope your love is reciprocated,

And that you feel comfortable in showing all your parts,

Even the worst ones,

And that you both heal each other,

By being with each other,

I hope all those stories are true,

Because our lives are short, traumatic, filled with unhappiness,

And love is a glimmer of hope,

Because even the most difficult times can be overcome,

If we have someone’s love and support,

Someone beside us to comfort us.

I hope that one day the cynical part of me will believe,

And I too would feel that for someone,

And someone would feel that for me,

I hope your daydreams come true,

And I hope it lasts forever and ever.