ditto

Love is too grand an emotion, and for weeks I struggled with it. Attempting to fathom what starry-eyed scholars, philosophers and --most successfully-- poets have wondered about for ages, I took those 70 days (I counted) and took part in the communal inner struggle of romantics the world over, for the pursuit of happiness and the wages of the heart.

My very first --and albeit, unoriginal-- thought was that amour is a roaring flame: something so potent in its aspect and forceful in its motions. It grows quickly and consumes you in its fiery throes and flickers of passion. The phrase that this drama "conquers all" led me here, thinking that it was something so invincible, so unquestionable as the turning of heavenly spheres and the perseverance of the stars.

An emotion so terribly absolute, I thought that all I had to do was patiently wait as it incubates within my chest. Restraining it as much as I could while it slowly, but surely, builds up inside and finally, at the most romantic of moments, explodes in a dazzling array of heat and giddiness and the echoes of its piercing crescendo shakes the vaults of the heavens, perhaps make the very angels look down and smile their secret smiles.

I thought that that was love: something intangible that pushes you around. I wanted to utter those three words at the last possible second, at the most final of hours, for the sole reason, the only reason, that the butterflies in my tummy left me no other choice.

But, of course, it turned out differently. It was so much simpler.

I like you because I don't have to do pretend-nice with you.
I adore you because the bullshit doesn't work, doesn't have to work.
I cherish you because you never let go.

You are the exception to the rule and so much more. I gladly fall apart at your slightest touch and yet I could weather the darkest storms by your side. You make me do the craziest things--only to find out I've been wanting it all along. You are irony, and through the conflict you invoke in my being, I have found my peace.

I've whispered my prayers and submitted my acquiescence. And here at the conclusion of all the tumult and turbulence of finding out what it means to really love someone, I've finally found my answer in you.

So I said I love you, and you said you loved me too.