love

Love gives, romance demands.

Love embraces, romance drowns.

Love holds, romance chokes.

Love feels like faraway fireworks on a sunset, but romance feels like nuclear bombs that annihilate your bones.

I don't love for the desire to care, or be cared for. I love because I can't help myself. To love someone is inevitable. No tickets or voyage, in the name of love, I just arrive.

"When you know, you know," People say. Oh darling, but I do not know when or if I even arrive.

Maybe I'm intellectualizing love too much, it paralyzes me. Love is meant to be felt, not overly analyzed like it is a damn research paper, baby, please.

But it scares me, the word love. It feels like a grandiose apocalyptic thing. Like the world is gonna end the moment I splurt out, "Aku cinta." Like damn, I be losing on this competition but it's not even a competition. So, what am I saying?

Ugh.