Fools

FOREWORD

Dear Reader,

Thank you for letting this find its way into your hands. If you're reading this through the screens, thank you for taking the time and energy to click through the link and holding on to that glimmer of hope for the content of this collection. I have created this for your eyes.

Two weeks ago, I asked some folks a simple question: What is the dumbest thing you ever did for love? I promised to honor their answers by writing them a poem inspired of what they sent me.

I will not sugarcoat. Their entries overwhelmed me. I didn't expect to receive much response. The past issues I released contained only twelve pieces of prose and poetry, but due to the volume of their honest submissions, I've managed to pack sixteen poems in this zine. I am humbled and honored by their belief in me.

A few facts about me: I am eighteen. I am a mouthful. I am in first year College yet I still have not memorized the quadratic formula. I eat coffee crumble ice cream straight from the tub. I do not know much about love. But for the past two weeks that I've worked on this collection, I've learned a few things about it, and life in general:

1. We all lose our minds over our hearts sometimes.

2. We do not really know what we are capable of doing for anyone until we fall in love.

3. It's called falling in love for a reason. There's a high when you're in midair, and then there's the crash.

Once, in a book I was reading, the author mentioned about a yogi in India who ate a car gradually over a year's time. To ask why would be an absurdity in itself. Such act was fueled by compulsion alone, gravitated by one's desire, echoed by the drumbeats in one's jostling breastplate. There's no rhyme or reason for such act. It was what it was, period. I believe that the same thing goes with being in love. We just love. We do not train ourselves how to. To make sense of such thing would be like squinting to see the awning of the city lights or to read a skyscraper's name through the downpour. So here's a toast to us, truthful lovers. Here's a toast to us, fools.

I hope you continue to trust your heart no matter how dumb it sounds sometimes. Keep in mind that it is the only muscle in our anatomy that knows how to sing, and I believe that it is built that way for a reason. Remember that if music always had to make sense, classical and rock and rolls wouldn't have existed. I hope your layers remain peeled away in the presence of your lover. I hope you continue to make mistakes out of love and learn from them out of hope. Most of all, I hope that the sacrifices you do for those you hold dear will not outweigh the love you have for your own.

With so much love and light,

Fransivan Mackenzie