Love is Fatal

Love is fatal.
One moment she’s not there, not even a germ in consciousness and the next there’s a forest of life. I need a map but no one knows where I can buy one.
“You don’t buy them Daniel.”
“Yea. Jesus H though, it’s already too late, I’m doomed to suffer the heartache.”
“Well, until you learn then the suffering will continue.”
“It feels like life, like birth, not entirely pleasant but bursting with potential and energy. The stuff that turns the world.”
Z smirked then laughed in both indictment and agreement.
I sat forlorn. “What a fuckin’ world.”
From what I can tell we all feel like this. There’s war and peace and songs and art and politics and disease and cure and no thought at all and genius and forest and desert and yogurts and wheat and beasts of burden and soft creatures and weapons and armor and ideas and consequence and sand and stone and currency and buzzing things and for all the world the instant and the crescent of daylight.
“I want to wrap up all that I can think of and give it away,” I told Z.
“Well, OK, you can do that. That’s art I think.” I agreed.

At work the task was to house the most delicate of objects on a support secure for international travel. The real work is essentially to do no harm. To be certain that any act of handling, movement, display or eventual removal does anything to its intent. Debate and discussion will shape what that intent is especially if its creator is dead, or more accurately debate and discussion will define temporary rules that govern its preservation. Temporary could mean a century or more. Much of the work is this measured consideration and then simple gestures to accomplish the task.

Luna would say to me, “Daniel, you must be certain that your actions are in line with your desires. I mean REALLY consider it and see if your choices and actions preserve those wants.” In an instant I knew they didn’t but I fired a retort within the most structured self deceptive capacity – something true that both reflects my knowledge of the counterweight while simultaneously acknowledges my parry; “All a woman need do to have me is show up and keep showing up.” Good friends will see through that dogshit but show up anyway. Better friends pick up the tab and whisper “I love you” behind a mountain of fists.