little lights

XXIII

Six Simple Steps to Falling In Love 

1. Trauma. Let the pain pour through you like the rain through a gutter, it'll clog you up and wash away all the things that matter, but it'll make room for the love to flow in, so you'd better stick it out in the rain, just wait for the love to bring the drought. The water will evaporate and the air will smell that much cleaner at True Love's first kiss.

2. Wish upon a star. Sit on the edge of your bed, facing the window, and clasp your hands in front of your chest like you're praying the rain of your trauma away, but instead you're wishing for that love. Squeeze your eyes shut so tight that you can almost see the sun shine red through the skin of your eyelids-- falling in love is easy when you truly want it.

3. Nothing else is important. Throw away your ambitions, throw caution to the wind, you are here on this planet to repopulate it, with the fruit of your loins, not with the content of your character. So prepare your body for childbirth and sit back and relax while whichever boy that wants you sweeps you clear off your feet.

4. Submit. Ambitions gone, caution gone, but next get rid of your passion. Shrink yourself down to allow him more room in your life. He is your new hobby, the new way to pass your time. Curl around your mug of tea like it might be your last and watch him interact with other people like you're plotting his murder, because one day he'll tire of you and you'll tire of living with him and there will be no other way to escape, since you've given him every ounce of you that you've got.

5. Be silent. Allow him his freedoms, but become a prisoner of your own mind. Worry about him while he spends little time thinking of you, and beg him not to make a foolish mistake because you've given him your whole world, and you can't ask for it back now, can you? Make sure to keep your limbs wrapped around him, believe with all your heart that you are silent parasite that latches onto him and cannot survive without his heat-- you are quiet, never noticed, never deadly.

6. Happily ever after. Dark circles under your eyes, hands shaking when you sign your name on the dotted line, handing over the rest of your identity to him. He will shape it into whatever he pleases, hands fast and strong as he remolds and erases things you thought were carved in so deep that they'd never disappear. The rain of your trauma has long since returned and he is no longer a drought but a typhoon or tsunami, he is the slow burn of a forest fire, but he is the harsh wind of a hurricane. And you? You are a tiny house on his horizon, he will be just fine without you.