We stand at the precipice of our lives, arrogantly confident in our ability to think logically and rationally. It is to feel eerily satisfied in one's ability to control emotions and, more so, repress them. The countless disappointments we experience from childhood and pubescence remain a stigma that love is fickle. 

Love is self-serving, love is selfish. Love is a fairytale, a burst of random yellows that turns into a promise of beautiful nothingness. 

Love breaks and takes when it turns sour. To love and be loved therefore means opening yourself up to the futility of it all. Deciding to be in love is in the same breath taking a risk of vulnerability, heartbreak and disappointment. These constant reminders of love were like hot coals on our feet, causing me to flee whenever we felt a tiny sparkle of love. We ran from love. 

As love starts showing like a tiny shrub in the garden, we would snuffle the life out of it by crushing it under the scorching fire of our rationality until it withered into desolation. We escaped this plague until the second year of university. 

Love crept upon us like a thief. She insidiously masqueraded as a friend. Slowly, Love ploughed all our defences, and slithered into our every consciousness. We would think of her in every waking moment. We longed to be by her side. To hold her, to listen to her vent, to laugh at our inside jokes. We yearned to hear her voice. Our day was futile without hearing from her. 

We became conjoined twins and when we fought, and my heart broke a hundred times over, I found myself still yearning for her. Falling in love shook our steeze and composure. It rocked our brain cells. We lost control. 

One day love began to slip away from my fingers. Love that was previously successful in straddling my hips became as difficult as trying to thread a needle. I began to notice how my body reacted to this. Our chest burned from heartbreak as our eyes became clouds of free-flowing tears. 

I tried to keep my mind still yet the cacophony of thoughts was a threat to our waking moments. Every day became less interesting without her. And so we vowed to keep her at arm's length in the future, an assignment we woefully failed two times after that. She has come to us a third time, Love. Even as we embrace her begrudgingly we have come to accept that heartbreak aside, nothing would ever beat falling in love. Love is human and the florid emotions she carries around her waist define our humanity.

Have you loved?