I am always returned

To the hand of waves

up-shore shells rolling me to come

listening for my bare feet

To the arms of trunks

descending green faces whispering

coloured wind into lungs

Swallowed

I always feel returned, that is why the desire for nature seems undoubtedly eternal. Always left craving, and then when I arrive, I am returned to the hands of waves, that roll upshore and back; motions to tell me to come closer, and I do just that.

Marriage has always seemed a bit silly to me; to be bound by contract to someone just as multifaceted, sperractic and ever changing as me. Every time I look back on old memories I can catch myself staring at my old, now unrecognisable face – how can I ensure that each new face loves the exact same? Marriage gives off the same concept as buying expensive clothes to a baby that will very shortly outgrow them and might even prefer other styles of clothing. It’s a catastrophic, yet extremely desired investment. For me, I believe love is always worth pursuing no matter if it carves out a month, a year or a life your of your time. The only instance I could ever let the bridal gown grow into my dreamscapes is if I were to be bride without a groom – nature’s bride.

I believe that the reason for many feeling betrayal by the real world love landscape is that love has been portrayed with being linked working as laws of nature. Fairy tales often work in a world of principality, which in this context, is defined as moral principles existing as laws of nature. Promises become law binding, threats become spells and words are always spoken in truth. When someone declares love it is spoken in these law binding ways that it becomes eternal. I am not alone standing in this weird desire for everlasting and finding it only in mythological mysticism… take a look at the amount of romantic tales between humans and god-like figures. In greek mythology alone, we have several tales of this such as Eros (cupid) who is asked by Aphrodite (goddess of love & beauty) to make Psyche (human) fall in love with an ugly creature, but instead Eros falls in love, and secretly marries her. We also have Pygmalion, a greek sculpture who falls in love with his creation, Galatea, that then gets turned into a human by Aphrodite. Apollo, the god of music and poetry fell in love with a human and immortalised that affection by naming the flower after his love, Hyacinth. Then we also have countless love stories where the power of love is divine in itself. Common stories that are linked with this are Beauty and The Beast, The Frog Prince, and Rapunzel. (I am aware these are all very eurocentric, but if you have any more diverse tales I would love to hear about them!)

The power of love, and the principality thinking around it, damages what it really is; a bloody beating heart. To pour in rules and ultimatums – you end up flooding the ribcage in still water. It is a shame that in the English language there is only one word for love. It puts this enormous pressure of feeling this eternal feeling that is supposedly able to make you want to go to the underworld just to retrieve your lost love or defeat a dragon. It is fantastical to believe in being found by love and it only needing to be declared once to be immortalised. The reality is that we are not trunks that root ourselves, and spread happy faced leaves, we are not the waves that come and return rhythmically without doubt, and we are not still on pages, even if you write the modern lovers contract. It beats, and it beats differently, in different rhythms every time you find yourself butterfly sick or with petals down your throat. It is beautifully multifaceted, sperractic and ever changing like me.

One thing that is good to remember is that most romantic tales that work in laws of nature often do not have the luxury or misfortune to see how couples psychologically and emotionally grow. Change, growth and adventure are the sacrifices for eternity – and so I plead, do not expect love to be anything else than what you make it and please do not listen to someone principality rules on what is, and what is not love. If I could play god for a second and tweak our words I would have about 50 ways of describing the feeling.