Love That Bites

I’m going to fall in love someday. One day, perhaps from out of the blue, perhaps from behind my back, some wonderfully precious lady is going to grab one of those caveman type clubs and send it crashing over my head. She’s going to make me see stars. For days, I’m going to be in a smiling stupor. Maybe I’ll even drool a bit. And I’m going to be in love.

This love is going to be neither cheap nor easy. It’s not going to be a plastic ring bought at the corner dime store. It’s not going to be a brass ring purchased at some commercial mall. It’s going to be a set of diamond in a ring of gold. This ring will not come from a gemstone though. I’m going to craft it myself. I’m going to smelt the ore, fashion the ring, cut the diamonds, and forge this magnificent jewel. It’s going to shine in the sunlight, glitter in the moonlight, and it will last for more than a thousand years. And it will befor her.

Now I don’t want this love to be bed of roses, painted or otherwise. I don’t want it simply sweet and sugary. I don’t want it to be just like peppermint bits or chocolate kisses.

I want this love to hurt.

I want this love to bite. I want this love to be able to bite. I’m not talking about ant bites, mosquito bites, bee stings. I don’t want to be bitten by some pitiful insect that I can slap away or crush with barely a thought. I want to be bitten by something with teeth. I want to be bitten by a great white shark or the king of the jungle. I want a piece of myself to be torn away and chewed on. I want to bleed.

I’m not crazy, and I’m not a masochist. I have never enjoyed pain and I don’t like being hurt. But I want my love to be able to hurt me.

I want my love to be someone I can fuss over, someone who’ll have me pulling out of my hair in fistfuls trying to decide whether she’d rather have the dozen roses or the Valentine truffles. I want my love to make me chew my fingernails down to my knuckles when it’s almost midnight and she’s not home from the office yet. I want my love to make my heart pound ceaselessly when I worry about her driving on highways inhabited by gas-pedal-pushing madmen.

I want my love to make me pace back and forth, wearing deep trenches in the carpet, when it’s 8:30 and she hasn’t called yet. I want my love to push big, fat, watery tears from the hiding places in my eyes, down my flushed cheeks, off my hardened chin, and onto my clenched fists when she yells the word “hate” in my face and calls me a jerk. I want to feel the cold kiss of steel through my heart should my love ever leave me all alone.

And should my love ever die, I want to weep for days on end. I want to scream and kick and curse and hate. I want to feel as if my body were being burned by fierce flames. I want to thrash madly about and when my spirit is spent, I want to feel a noose tighten around my neck, slowly choking me.

With my hands clasped about my throat, I want to feel cold, as if ice had slid through my veins. I want to feel the heavy black weight loss and love on my frail shoulders.

I want my love to hurt, hurt as painfully as can be. I want to feel every bit of this pain. I want to feel every bit of this love.

I want this because love that doesn’t hurt is love that isn’t real. And I want the real thing for me and my true love.

*by Paolo Manlapaz