Love

It was too big for me to process. Too big to really process.

I was too big, too terrible, for me to process.

But as the ink flowed onto the paper, thoughts rearranged themselves in a comprehensible--though not chronological--order. I started to see.

That was called love. But it was false love. Oh, it looked so real; but it was jealousy. Selfishness. It was dangerous, devouring, destroying. What do you call such a thing? It's certainly not love. It's a monster.

Happiness gained by one: true, blissful happiness. And another, the girl, the sister and mother-figure--couldn't let her darling go. She ruined the bliss. Tore all the earth to pieces, in the name of love. But was it love?

That was also called love. She said she loved him. But what had she done? She had consumed him; sapped his life one heartbeat at a time. Her endless demands for his opinion, his counsel, his guardship, his sword: her need was met. But he died, shriveled and spent.

A friend, a counselor. One who taught her the art of the sword. One who counseled. She thought she loved him, too. She needed him to keep her new kingdom running. And he kept going to keep her going, until he finally gave out, years before his time. It seems like love... but was it really?

That veil. It's always there. In fact, it's so much there that that's how the people identify their sovereign. The mask. The hiding. The mystery and secrecy. What does that veil hide, anyway? It was another need: a need to hide that face that drove her to the veil. And from behind the veil, she consumed, devoured, and destroyed.

A rejected, forlorn figure, now elevated to royalty. Cast aside and unwanted, now changing her kingdom, making her subjects love her. But from behind a mask. Hidden behind that mask is a face--and it's isn't a beautiful one.

Oh, and we can't forget the sword. The campaigns. The war and bloodshed. The sword.

Love.
A veil.
A sword.
A hideous face.
A need to consume.

It sounds strangely like a horror film. But it's true. I know it is.

Though it's an allegory too big for my mind to process, something in me picked out pieces that, though also too large, were something more processable.

How often do I call love what really is selfishness?
Have I spent a life, destroyed and devoured the very energy of someone else?
Have I had a veil? ....do I have it still?
How ugly is the face hiding beneath the mask? Is it unbearably hideous, like I've feared for so many years?

And how about you?

I stepped into an allegorical sovereign's shoes. And I saw, not her story, but mine.

However, I saw more than that. I saw hope.

Because I got to read to the end of that story. And I saw the wasted life, the fear, the turmoil. I saw the horror when the guilty one realized how many hearts, lives, had been consumed and devoured by what she blindly believed was love. I saw her end.

I'm not at the end of my story. Therefore, my end does not need to be like that.

Neither does yours.

Perhaps the time has indeed come; or at least is very near; when the risk to remain veiled is greater than the risk of being known.

Perhaps...

Perhaps love is more than you and I ever thought it could be.