C11: Intermission - True Love, Shouldn't Be This Complicated
This might sound a little crazy come from a guy who knows almost everything about almost everything but, what is love? I mean it's pretty easy to describe a romance scene, tried a couple and it kinda worked out. But it's kinda weird, isn't it? Maybe not, but it's kinda weird to me. Not the 'lovey-dubey' stuff just the idea of love itself. I never bothered about the topic cause I felt it was way too complicated. Shit, the ring on my finger is definitely not in the name of love, but sooner or later we'll have to address the elephant in the room right? Why not now? If the topic doesn't interest you, you can skip to the next letter. Delve straight into it too. But if it does, let's rub minds for a second, shall we?
So… two people meet each other by some random invisible strings that are technically pulled by the universe and they start to spend time together. May or may not initially hate themselves but catching one's eye at first glance isn't really guaranteed either. So they spend a little time together. Get to know each other's likes and dislikes, habits and life patterns, and eventually, get used to each other's company. Along the line, or maybe even suppressed from the very start they develop feelings towards other. Sometimes you just can't focus when he's not in class. Can't think straight when she doesn't show up in school. Their absence just makes everything, including life in itself, that little bit duller. They may or may not seal it with a couple kisses, gazes for eternities or a steamy and completely unplanned make out session, but they feel something for each other. Something they just can't describe but they know it's there. It's bubbling underneath and shoving the lid off from the inside out. It's uncontrollable, unfathomable, but after a couple checks for yourself, it's understandable. That funky feeling. Almost narcotic. Definitely addictive. The feeling of falling in love.
So you see, the process and its intimate descriptions are pretty easy to jot down. I tried my best in the preceding paragraph to show that. But if you got to class or got stopped on the sidewalk by some smart ass looking to rack up a couple views on his TikTok video and you were asked what love was, what'd you say?
Love is some strong emotion that makes you feel incomplete without the substance you cling and claim to … well, love. Love is the mature elder brother of an infatuation. Love is life. "Love encompasses a range of strong and positive emotional and mental states, from the most sublime virtue or good habit, the deepest interpersonal affection, to the simplest pleasure." That one, I copped from the prison library. Pretty encompassing definition too ayy? All of those definitions are probably equally correct, but no matter how many times we sit and ponder this age-old topic, I feel like no one'll ever really hit the nail on the head.
'Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind." Yup. Nothing like a cup of Shakespeare to rattle an already aching mind. Hey I made that rhyme. Cupid painted blind ayy. I think pretty much every one is blind when it comes to this exact virtue. Love. Hard to explain, easy to experience. I mean that was the whole idea behind Romeo and Juliet. "The Notebook" only had such an effect because it strummed the harp of love so often. Perhaps it's even what Malcolm and Shelby feel for each other. Right? Not so much.
It's easy to kiss someone. Harder to make out. Perhaps kinda a big step to really get intimate with your lover and actually, you know, fuck. But it's pretty damn easy to feign feelings for someone I promise you that. You're feigning attention to my vague words right now. I'm not really saying that I feel either Shelby or Malcolm were using each other, I'm just saying because of the ambiguity of that virtue we all call love, Pandora's box is always oozing on its handles wherever it chooses to mount a door.
What do I mean? Well, love is all fun and games and half-baked babies with uncomfortable arrows, till it evokes the wrong side effect, with the wrong people. Love won't die down. Love refuses to get held back. Love will not be tamed. With the right time, and the perfect characters, love starts to choke. Starve itself from the inside out. Suffocating itself with those once tender hands. What was once a bundle of hope, joy and life… becomes toxic. Love becomes toxic. That is the plague it was cursed with since inception.
I'm no Eros but I promise you, undying hatred is nothing compared to toxic love. And I'm not talking from some endless string of words that I can effortlessly put together from the comfortable walls of a maximum security facility (I feel like I'm getting better at this shit), I'm saying what I've seen. And what Malcolm and Shelby share is a chip off a familiar book.
Forget the words of comfort, forget the unnecessary flings, forget the smiles and the time they spend with you. Forget the promises of haven, forget the lips of a lover, the kiss of a comforter. Some people are lucky enough to witness things they started come to an end. Happily ever after or not. Others have to watch what they created continue to grow. Grow into a living, breathing Armageddon.
I personally was never a fan of that pair, M and Shell. Never. Call it jealousy, you might be right. But what would an aching soul like mine have to gain from a bond like that. Even in the flair of a couple years ago, the brazen and bold years, I didn't gel with that clique. Perhaps I'm just not meant for true love. But maybe, just maybe… neither were they.