When Icarus Falls In Love Again (Dare I Say That I Am Icarus)

I delude myself into thinking that I never want to fall in love again. I repeat it to myself (don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t…) as if I’m going to succeed in convincing myself that it’s not worth it -- like it’s never worth it. I tell this to myself as if it’s something I can control. It’s all a lie, of course. 

The last man I fell in love with was my undoing. After he left me, I turned my blinders on. I stacked bricks up around my crumbling soul, nailed slabs of wood around my barely beating heart, and glued them shut with cement. I bought a one-way ticket to singledom (not really bought, though, was it? It was more so forced in my closed fist and I was shoved through the door, kicking and screaming and sobbing) and promised myself that I would never return to a place that made me feel a grief so intense, never return to a place where I wore my vulnerabilities on my sleeve for all to see. 

I don’t know who I’m trying to persuade when I say that I never want to fall in love again (it’s myself, but let’s not ruin the surprise) because we all know it’s not true. To my core, I am someone who craves intimacy, someone who would walk to the ends of the earth for the person I love. I have never been the muse; I have always been the writer, the artist, the maker, the creator, and maybe all my life I’ve been searching for someone who will write, draw, make, create me into someone who is worth loving, someone who is worth staying for. 

If I fall in love again (when I fall in love again? Is that a guarantee? Nothing in life is promised except death and taxes, right?), I won’t let him consume me, like he owns a piece of me. Well, maybe for the first month. Or the first two months, because let’s be honest, isn’t that how it always goes? Maybe I will let my guard down, but only slightly. I’ll shave down the wood that borders my heart and let her breathe a little, let her catch a glimpse of who’s there like she’s sneaking a peek over the edge. But just a little bit. Only a little bit because my heart is made of glass and everyone who ever has a chance of seeing her is a sledgehammer, and I am not the best at saying “no”. 

I know I will be in love when he smiles at me, and it’s like a hand has lunged into my chest, squeezing my heart tight. He will laugh at something I say and the sound of it feels like coming home. At that moment, I know I will do anything to keep him laughing forever. I’ll know that I am in love when we pass glances at each other, catching each other’s eyes only for a moment, no words spoken aloud but a whole conversation has passed between us. He will be my first thought in the morning and my last thought at night. He will be in every dream when I sleep, and I’ll look for his face everywhere I go because my God, isn’t that the best face you’ve ever seen in your life? 

Sometimes I think that I want an epic love story. That’s not to say that I didn’t have an epic love story with the last person I fell in love with because if I’m being honest, any person who makes my heart beat a little funny just because they looked at me, I would consider that pretty epic. Even the way our love ended, the complete and total visceral obliteration of my entire being was definitely, epic. I want an epic love, a love that is almost violent to a fault. A love that drowns you, fills your lungs wrings your neck, and leaves you there, choking on your own emotions. 

I want a love that is like a drug. A love so intoxicating, one that feels so satisfying that it’s almost painful, so good that it’s almost bad. I’ll know that I will never need to try cocaine because I’m sure that just the feeling of being wanted by him is the highest I’ll ever be. When I’m in love again, I know that if I ever lose this type of love that courses through my bloodstream and every nerve ending in my body,  it will be worse than any comedown I can experience from any narcotic. I want a love that if taken away from me, I think I may just want to die. 

I want a quiet love. Even though we don’t flaunt our affection for each other, I will know that the way he brushes his hand on the small of my back and how I am the first person he looks for in every room says everything that anyone needs to know. We may not be printed in the tabloids or be the hot gossip of the century, but our love story will be written in the stars, pressing up against the edge of this universe, threatening to spill into the next one over. 

So, even though I still say that I never want to fall in love again, I know that I will. I know that I repeat this phrase as a way to protect myself from opening up to anyone because to know me is to love me and to love me is to have the power to destroy me. I know that I will soberly proclaim that I never want to fall in love again, but when I am drunk, I can not help but shout from the rooftops that I adore. I adore, I adore, I adore! I will want so badly to crawl home to someone at the end of the night just so I can say I love them and the need in me to love and be loved will be so unbearable, the ache in me so painstakingly obvious, that I swear I won’t ever let alcohol touch my lips again. Another lie, of course. 

I will continue to tell myself that I never want to fall in love again, though I know it is not the truth. I am Icarus -- for all that I have fallen, for all the pain I felt when my body collided with cold, hard Earth, I know that I still flew. I still flew, and I still saw the sun and for a moment, the sun saw me, and for that reason, I know that I will fall in love again.