'Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does, Love is a battle, Love is a war' James Arthur Baldwin
So, it begins. Amore. Sweet disposition. The heart thuds, the tummy flutters, that sudden charge of electricity.
Zap.
The adventure. The excitement. The fear of the unknown. It’s a beautiful thing; a gentile reminder that you.are.alive. But it never ends the way it begins, does it?
Love is a War. (destructive, ruthless and merciless) In commonplace, the idea is a juxtaposition, opposites that spare no room for the other. The idea of love seems to intoxicate. The world appears obsessed by this notion - a fairytale, a disney production, the Cinderella story which never fails to end in a ‘happily ever after.‘ This is what we choose to see - but we all know better than that, don’t we? Scratch beyond the surface. Tear away the aesthetics, the fairytales and the idealistic images...
...See?
Even the most romantic love stories are not complete without their pitfalls. Many individuals from day dot to present have described this state of mind as a battle, an emotion where love and war are closely tied. Pandoras box.
Lets take Carol Ann Duffy as one example. Have you ever read something that has rattled your core and will continue to do so indefinitely? Allow your co ordinates to collide with her alternative perspective of love - ‘Medusa’ Once beautiful, she is turned into a creature of terror, developing her physical characteristics as a defense mechanism for heartbreak. Love had turned her stale. The destructive power of jealousy and the fear of being unloved had transformed her into a monster. And a war grew inside. Her scars on show for all to see. The snakes - her shield. Love gone bad. Each stanza, beautiful crafted in its execution, has the power to frighten the subconscious for life. The thought that a notion, once so beautiful, could shape-shift into a venomous cluster of anger, spitting bitterness in every line, is alarming for the naive at the best of times.
‘There are bullet tears in my eyes.
Are you terrified?
Be terrified.
It’s you I love.’
It screams hate. The etched words prove it. Flesh to stone. Love to war.
And music. The majority of songs we hear are either about love, or the lack of. And who can blame the budding musicians? It seems like a topical focus of daily life, something that the majority of us can relate to. Sex is not the only thing that sells, you know. Furthermore, songs about failed/troubled love always seem so strangely beautiful, don’t they? It’s almost like you can see the cracks etching their way across a heart. Like you yourself have experienced those wounds as the result of war games. They cast a shadow over the most bewitching of emotions, tear away the magic and leave you with the reminisce of of a Skins party - no music, glitter or highs. Just a bloody mess. Reckless abandon.
But who says it’s all bad? Do we not learn from the bad as well as the good?
‘Colour my life with the chaos of trouble.’
Without these battles wouldn’t our existence would be predictable and colourless? No one really wants love to resemble a utopia, stripped of emotions that make us human...where would the passion come from? Romance would be nothing more than a 1950’s American TV show. Black + white and dull. So embrace the chaos. Scars are a reminder that you have dared. And if you haven’t, it’s an inevitability that we will all fall victim. So dust off your armor, shields and white flags...
The war is coming...