casual goodbyes.

I haven't had a summer romance in, what seems like, years. I have always confessed to being a pathetically hopeless romantic - and the depth of my belief in cheesy, irrevocable love is unending. At 26, I have probably felt real love once in my life. Just once. But I have had countless brushes with butterflies; butterflies being the precursor to love. Butterflies being, in my opinion, the best part of love. I am an addict for that feeling. I am shamelessly hooked on the body rush that accompanies the heart's lust for another beating body. However, in my brief and very limited experience, I have learned that no encounter will ever match your first "high". The subsequent, and fruitless, flirtation with butterfly wings will never amount to much more than exactly that: lust.

I can't explain how it feels, or how it makes ME feel. I would have to slip out of the trench coat of my skin and offer it to you, in order for you to understand how love, for me, feels. There aren't enough adjectives in the English language to describe how my heart quickens, and stubbornly lodges itself in my throat - how that feels. It is maddening. Unpredictable, uncontrollable, and addicting. The mere mention of love's name, his name, sends a circuit of firecrackers over my skin; bottle rockets erupt in succession, and blanket the circumference of my body in tremors, and instability. It is incredible. It is more than loving someone for their qualities, or fine personality quirks. It is loving someone because of the way they make you feel. Not just happiness, or contentment, or even joy - the way they make you feel inside of your body. Inside of your skin. That feeling is the heart of what makes my heart turn somersaults beneath my ribcage. It is the rhyme behind love's lack of reason, and its presence in my body. In my life. The absolution of knowing that I would do anything for the person, the source of my love and adoration. The certainty I feel in his presence, and the unyielding desire to secure and ensure his happiness. That feeling is the source of my addiction, and damn does it hurt once it escapes.

The heart wants what the heart wants; logic has no dog in love's quarrels. Only in the wake of destruction does logic surface, and smirk. Hind sight is 20/20 - cliche, irritating, and true. I am still grappling with the I-told-you-so's; my own stubbornness is relentless and causes more internal chaos than necessary.  How do you free yourself from that? That feeling of uncontrollable possession that masks itself as love. It is sobering to witness one's own coveted cache of physical, and spiritual emotion, unravel one tear at a time. Detox is so painful. So painful, that it seems easier to attempt repair than to endure the hemorrhage of heart's defeat. I am guilty. I have dug out my hard hat and charged into the operating room; I have sewn, and bandaged, and pleaded, and promised things I didn't even have. All for fear of losing that fleeting, and unmatched desire for another human being. All for that high. If I could bottle my addiction into a mason jar, I would. I would do so, only to open the lid before a hurricane and mimic the paralyzing rush that had once consumed me in love's presence. How is that for hopeless?

I suppose it would be one thing if love's rush to the exit were self-inflicted - it would be easier to wean from its intoxication. But it isn't self-inflicted. It is surprising and disappointing and confusing when love is ushered away by the object itself: by the lover himself. His sudden absence from your life begs questions and stirs emotion that would have otherwise stayed dormant. For me, the loss of that power has never made sense. If the energy of love isn't between you and that person anymore, where has it gone?

I wish I could control how I felt. I wish I could stabilize the fluttering of my heart - at least that is what I tell myself. If I could dictate the language of my lust, and of my love, would I coax myself into loving a little less? Or prevent myself from loving at all? The fear of never feeling that first high again is terrifying; the fear I have of letting go is crippling, and obviously irrational. But it is there. It cowers in the corner of my subconscious and gloats in private - but I still feel it. It is taxing, it is exhausting, and it fills a space that I didn't even know was empty. It is funny how quickly a storm can change direction. Though, I am not laughing.

Summer romance? Maybe. For now, I will just chase butterflies.