Picture Perfect II

Chapter 9: Love Is Power

It's unfair that we make permanent memories with temporary people. It's also unfair that life is a cesspool of regrets, bad decisions and pain. Just when you think everything is coming together, you get a rude awakening from your insipid dreams. I mean, even the biggest optimist can feel like they're at their limits when every facet of their lives seems to be in turmoil.

Trying to win at life these days feels like attempting to drown a fish, "God giveth and God taketh away", one day you can have it all and the next day have nothing at all. Maybe being pessimistic is the enemy of progress or maybe being optimistic is naivety, either way, life can really be a bitter bitch sometimes.

I suppose the road to attaining true peace is accepting what is and letting go of what isn't, granted you can't change the past but you can learn from it. And no matter how many times you feel cheated out of happiness, remember whatever leaves you wasn't for you to begin with. Don't be so hard on yourself, learn to forgive yourself, learn to love yourself and you'll attract the same energy (well, sometimes). Easier said than done right?

I mean love is a beauty with an ugly side, it can turn a beautiful field of sunflowers into a frozen tundra and we hate love, don't we? We don't want feelings and all that commitment business, right? We want to be free without any obligation to love another human being, I mean why should we anyway? They'll just take our love and wipe their backsides with it then rub it in our faces, right?

But yet here we are online posting romantic quotes and saying "goals" when we see a simple picture of a couple holding hands. So do we want love or are we just in love with the idea of wanting it? Most women will say they just want a man who will love them unconditionally but their love comes with conditions; "He shouldn't be too clingy, it makes him look weak but he should allow himself to be vulnerable but not too vulnerable however he should acknowledge his weaknesses and expose himself completely but he shouldn't be too open." What does that even mean?

"He should text you everyday but still give you enough space to miss him." You don't care about what he has but he should at least have a car and a house before he's 25, right? While you live at home with your eight aunts, ten cats, sixteen children and three uncles?

And I know what you're thinking, "men do the same thing too", yes we do. We want a woman who's outgoing but not too social, shy but not too reserved, a freak who we'll question and not trust for being one. A clingy girl who leaves us alone but is at our beck and call when we want her. See what I mean? We don't want what we want, we want what we don't know we want, confusing right?

The point I'm making here is that we've created ideologies about what love is. For us, love is a person's characteristics, love is the embodiment of what a person has to offer you and not what you have to offer each other. And for people like K, love means taking. "Because you love me, give and I'll take" is essentially what love means to them and that's where true essence of love is lost.

Well, maybe everyone isn't meant to be loved. Maybe some of us are destined to be alone, maybe we're whole when alone, maybe happiness, for us means solitude and isolation. Maybe we're destined to purge Cupid from our minds, shove the bow and arrow he carries down his throat and send him packing.

Or maybe we are so afraid of being loved because we don't know if we can even handle it. Being loved is having power, power over an entire human being; having someone who would do unmentionable things for you is POWER and power corrupts, so maybe love damages good people? 

Maybe Keletso got so comfortable basking in the power I gave her that she lost sight of what really mattered most as well as how that power came to be. She felt entitled to it, she felt like she earned the right to do as she pleased, why? Because she was loved and she was conscious of that fact so that was a shield, a cheat code to get away with any malicious acts.

But if I've learned anything over the years, it's that your best will never be good enough for someone who doesn't deserve it.

But then again, love means different things to different people, some of us take it very seriously while others misuse it for malice. Love is just as dangerous as it is peaceful and like I said; it's power and power isn't for everyone. It can make or break you, depending on how strong your character is.

But irrespective of the past, learn to live and love again because even when you trip, you're still moving forward. The truth is; we write our own happily ever afters so consider everyone who wasn't for you as a typo.

I wanted our relationship to work out so bad because she was perfect and I was afraid of change. I legit saw something special there but then her true colours poked out from behind her smile and that darkened my skies. I suppose I subconsciously thought what I was about to do was justified, it was redemption, that cold plate of revenge that I wanted to serve Keletso with a side salad of "go fuck yourself!"

Drunk thoughts from a sober mind as I reached for Lerato's thighs, feeling the fabric of her purple sundress...