If Love Was An Hourglass

“If I ever were to lose you,

I’d surely lose myself”

Someone once asked me, “What does love mean to you?”. Simple as it may seem and yet only a fool would pretend to know the answer to a question of that nature I thought. For what man or woman is capable of stringing together the words necessary to provide such a nuanced response? But am I not human? Am I not allowed to feel? Am I not allowed to have a perspective that is subjectively my own, I wondered, unsure if I wanted to respond at first. We sat in silence until I softly replied.

I think love is a great many things. It is the bearer of fruit. The harbinger of a better tomorrow. The soothsayer of the good times that have yet come to pass. Born into royalty but often slips past the castle walls, an inquisitor turned magister that instigates the tranquillity of the masses in the halls. Today at peace. Tomorrow at war. But she’s sweet and respectful unlike the rest of her kin, and yet unbeknownst to most, she’s a sly wolf in sheep’s clothing; an evoker of the original sin. She brings people together; She drives them apart. Ever so subtle, and yet always plays her part. She is as well regarded as she is misunderstood. She is as flawed as she is beautiful. She’s everyone’s desire and yet, not many know how to court her, much less keep her.

Love is the pen that graces the paper with which all romantic poems were written. Verses detailing a love so sweet, enough to leave even Aphrodite smitten. Love is the instrument that blesses the hands with which all songs of heartbreak were composed. Notes describing a love so sacred, that its disruption causes an aching the heart can’t quite disclose. Love is the original architect of fantasy and make believe. The adept puppeteer who tugs on the heart strings of the gullible to hurt, feel, love and deceive.

How peculiar, that love with one hand should be the creator of worlds, and with the other, their destroyer as well. How curious, that love gives us direction just as easily as it drives us astray. And how strange, that love is able to bring out the best in us with the same amount of ease that it takes to bring out our worst. Love weaves itself an intricate web. A tangled web. Love invites despair. And yet, in us, it also instils hope. Some yearn for it. Others kill for it. Some find it in the snap of a finger, while others spend their entire lives searching for it.

“When I was young, before we begun,

I never thought we all had someone”

So, how does one know? That what they feel is truly love and not merely carnal attraction? How does one tell them apart? Love is when sacrifices have never felt easier to make. When letting go of our insecurities has never felt so effortless. When revealing our vulnerabilities has never felt more comfortable. That there is the difference. That is how you know. Love is when you’re falling but rising just the same. It is a source of strength while also serving as a cause of weakness. It stiffens our chest and gives us the courage to ball our fists. And yet it is equally capable of making our legs tremble and knees shake. Love is the fuel that ignites our engines, the concoction that bolsters our senses and the force that keeps us grounded and makes us perseverant. Love constitutes all that we know and what we don’t.

“I took your breath, but you took the rest,

I promised you always a place on my chest”

Love is patient. Love is kind. Years could pass, and yet the way someone once made you feel may never truly leave your mind. Put as much distance between you and the people you love as you want, but the kindness shown to you by someone you held dear will forever stand against the test of time.

Love is evil; sometimes blind. Love is able to warp the truth. To some it provides clarity. Others are blindsided to reality, oftentimes exchanging reason for the feeling of validation. Can we blame them? For wanting to be accepted? To be cared for? To be, dare I say, loved? Even if just for a moment, to feel as if they matter.

Love can be overwhelming. It has the power to build us up and break us down. Shoot us high into the night sky and bring us crashing right back to the ground. Love can be unconditional. The lengths we are able to go for those we love knows no bounds. Suddenly, no ocean seems too wide to swim across, no cliff too tall to scale and no marathon too strenuous to run.

Love cannot be bought. It bows down to neither silver nor gold. No amount of fortune or wealth has ever been able to make people feel the sensation of being loved. Buying someone’s time and physical presence bears no similarity to the genuine feelings of endearment, affection and sacrifice given to you by someone that truly values you for who you are. Love cannot be forced. An epiphany greets most people in their selfish pursuit to relieve themselves of their loneliness and lack of attention. Only for them to soon realize that what satisfies lust doesn’t satisfy love. A warm body alone does little to cease the aching of the heart.

Love is as sincere as it is curious. It allows access to a vast tapestry of emotions and moments that would otherwise seem inaccessible. Access to moments without insecurity, without judgement and without vulnerability. When it allows you to run when you can barely walk. When you suddenly have the energy to sing when all this time you weren’t even the type to talk. When a house is given purpose and it in turn becomes a home. When the days of loneliness and isolation are dead and gone. When the flutter of a thousand butterflies isn’t enough to communicate the beauty they bring into your life. When the heat of the sun is insufficient to replicate the warmth they make you feel inside. That is love. And, by God, is it beautiful.

“Will you still love me when I’m no longer young and beautiful?”

Love is at the root of happiness as it is of grief. When it is present, life seemingly has direction irrespective of circumstance. The same way a flower blooms and reaches out to the sky under the sweet kiss of sunlight. And in its absence, it invites pain, doubt and suffering, robbing our world of all its colour and meaning. Love is the enabler and disabler of insecurity. It is capable of making us feel comfortable in our own skin while also serving as a catalyst in making us ponder upon whether we are enough for those that we hold dear.

“Will you still love me when I’ve got nothing but my aching soul?”

Love is adroit at playing dress up; often presenting itself in disguise. Quite frankly, even I struggle to make sense of it sometimes. They say to love is to forgive. To love is to let go. To love is to suffer. So, which one is it, I often wonder? Surely, love cannot be all of the above? Because if love is to forgive then it cannot give rise to hate. And if love is to let go then it cannot birth faith. But isn’t love known to be the birthplace of both hope and of hate? And so, if hate can stem from love, and if love can rise from hate, aren’t they both the sculptor of a beautiful yet perilous fate? Ah, a myriad of questions. When it comes to love, that’s all that we have. A mystery it has been in all the years that have passed. A mystery it’ll remain for all the years that will pass. All my life I’ve tried to understand it albeit using the wrong lens. A lesson imparted in me by neither acquaintances, family nor friends. In love, I sought rationale. A fool’s errand, I’d soon come to learn. Because love is a riddle, one that we can’t pick apart.  For no reason nor logic govern the laws of the heart.

“The heart plays in ways the mind can’t figure out.”

The laws of the heart were authored by neither scholar nor sage. Its intricacies and nuances recorded in neither script nor page. Its secrets remain largely foreign to preachers and world leaders alike. It’s dogmas still a mystery, boasting a fleeting sense of delight. The extent of its sweetness is only but partially captured in song and verse. To some, it’s a gift, to others, a curse.

It’s madness. That’s what love is. A beautiful madness. A necessary madness. One we cannot do without. It keeps on our feet. It keeps us guessing. And it makes us hold onto life and its uncertainty at a time when we thought we no longer could. An emotion so strong that it makes a non-believer keep faith. It’s when a seed of hope is planted in an abyss of hopelessness and when the fine line between reality and mirage slowly starts to fade away. Love is sweet because it is exclusive. It is valuable because it can’t be found in abundance. Love gives us purpose. It keeps us honest. It reminds us that we are human.

“Come lay me down”

In love, I place my faith in the hopes of a better tomorrow.

“Come heal me now”

For love, I venture into the great unknown.

“Come take this crown,

[I] don’t need it anymore”

To love, its warmth and gentle nature; I surrender.

The truth is that I’m afraid. Scared even. Of the world and the people that inhabit it. Scared of how people can fall out of love just as easily as they fall in it. Scared of how people confuse and give into lust so easily and mindlessly to fill the void that opens in the absence of love. Curious, isn’t it? How we seek asylum and sometimes feel the need to remove ourselves from the world, not because of the rejection of love, but due to the desperate need for it. And humorous, is it not? How in the vast expanse of time since the creation of humanity, wars  have been fought, ideologies have come and gone, men have set foot on the moon and yet,  nothing has proven more complex than the inner workings of the heart that dictates the human condition.

“One day, my love, they’ll carry us home,

On stretchers of pine and there’ll be no more pain”

It is my belief that there’s someone out there for all of us. Someone who finds perfections in our imperfections. Someone who loves us for who we are in the skin that we wear. Someone for you, and someone for me. It’s a little intimidating, wouldn’t you agree? To know that there’s someone out there, someone you’ve never met, someone you know nothing about, who will eventually become your whole world? What does it feel to surrender our insecurities and lower our walls in response to the warmth of their love? To trust them with the darkest parts of ourselves and let go of our inhibitions so comfortably? To know that you’re on their mind every waking moment and every time they rest their head to go to bed? It must feel nice. To be valued, to be well regarded for, to be made feel as if you matter.

“You and I, darling, we’re just leaves on the sea,

Carried by currents to a far away shore”

To that certain someone, whoever you may be, perhaps we have never met. Perhaps we have and we are simply unaware of what lies ahead or what forces of nature may bring us together. Regardless, there will come a time where I will have you and you will have me. When we will find comfort in each other’s arms. When our fingers intertwine and will run the length of each other’s hair. The warm moisture of our lips imprinted on each other’s skin reminding us that we are not alone and that we are loved. Dancing to music so endearing and drinking on wine so sweet.

“And all of these troubles will melt like the snow,

the sun and our music will be all that remains”

Will we know comfort? Will we know peace? I know not, lover. What I do know, however, is that we will work towards it. That we will see it through. That while the road ahead may be long and unforgiving, we will find what we are seeking; together. Will we see eye to eye? Perhaps on some days, perhaps not on others. Will we drift apart as a result? No, I don’t think we will. A momentary lack of understanding of each other’s perspective perhaps, but not due to the lack of love. We will know healthy compromise as we support and build each other up. We will learn that we both are human, that we aren’t immune to mistakes and to always look out for each other. We will teach one another how we’d each like to be loved as we peel away our insecurities in the safety of a warm embrace. Will you nurture me the way I do you? I trust that you will. And so, in your loving hands I place my heart; I pray that you will look over it; that you will nurture it.

“And we’ll be together, forever, my love,

In the depths of the earth and the last stars to shine”

I understand that the world can at times be unjust, quite draining and pose obstacles so insufferable that makes it almost impossible to trust. And yet, even with those odds, my love, we must. Open your heart. Open your heart to the world around you. Open your heart to the little things that constitute this life we call ours. For we will not have this time for too long. Let us not live with regret. Let us use each sunrise as an opportunity to be grateful for what the world has given us and every sunset as a reminder to cherish those we love and hold dear. We may not have the world, but we will have each other. Soon there will come a time when we have traded our youth and beauty for wisdom. When our voices have long since lost its sweetness. When our hairs have turned grey, and our lifelong friends have bid their adieus and now lie their graves. When, sweet child, our love will be the only thing that remains. I pray that you will believe in me in the same way that I believe in you. Even in uncertainty, there is but a singular fact that will forever be true. I will love you always. Endlessly. Sincerely. Unconditionally.

“And I believe ’cause I can see,

Our future days,

Days of you and me”

So, here’s to you, to us, our children if we’re blessed enough to have them, and this “vast and wonderful world that gave us life and keeps us guessing”. All I ask is for you to have faith. Our love will persevere. Trust that the universe will bring us together. In time, darling, we will know love. We will learn to love. And in doing so, we will learn to be loved. These scars will heal. These wounds will fade. The sun will shine on us again. Love can be our saviour. Love can be our detriment. Whichever form it may take, it is ultimately the jury of our sakes. For what, pray tell, are men and women without love? Let it guide us. Let it shape us. Let it open our eyes and hearts to the world. Who are we, if not sentient beings that just want to be loved?

– Vibhath Nupathi Jayasinghe

Cover image by ‘Robokoboto’.