My mother was never in love with my father.
“We didn’t concern ourselves with “love” the way your generation does,” my mother said.
We are too consumed by love, with falling in love, being in love, wanting to be loved. Every morning as my train moves across the Williamsburg Bridge, I see the graffitti on a building that reads “Love Me. Love Me.” It makes me smile, but it also makes me sad as it reminds me of broken hearts- not just mine, but of people I know.
I was telling a friend that I want to be in love, that I don’t want my mother’s kind of love, the kind you grow to feel without much thought. Despite her seemingly satisfied self and contentment with my father and her grown children, I rather have the heart breaks than be just satisfied and not “in love”.
And yet who defined this idea of falling in love? If no one ever bothered defining it, we wouldn’t be so consumed by it, and there would be no broken hearts. After all, how can a heart break?
“Love Me. Love Me”. It’s a demand we make when really, we should be loving ourselves first.

Let’s not get to know each other. Let’s not learn our favorite colors and flowers. Let’s not try to understand. Let’s not remember our secrets. Let’s not make memories that last. Let’s not pretend we are in love when we are far from it. Let’s not make promises or throw out “I am sorry” when we have nothing to offer in return. Let’s not make plans for the future. Let’s not ask how we feel inside or what we do when we are alone. Let’s not ask about trust. Let’s not call it making love.
Let’s hurt. Let’s close our hearts. Let’s forget the future. Let’s pollute the present and smoke through it so it all becomes a blur. Let’s walk in silence because our words only waste our breaths.
Let’s fuck. Let’s eat and blow, and puff on that last cigarette. Let’s turn the music up so we can’t hear each other. Let’s get high on the weed we spent all our savings on.
Let’s see others and not be exclusive. Let’s be undefined. Let’s stay in the dark where no one can see us, touch us, tell us we aren’t right for each other. Let’s kiss under the blanket, above the sheet that covers the bloodstained mattress where other women slept. Let’s stay in the dark where we can lie to each other as we sweat and taste the salt as our lips intertwine. Let’s shut off the lights so we don’t have to learn each other’s expressions or the betrayal in our eyes. Let’s not wait with expectation. Let’s not care about the world we corrupt, the souls we puncture, the hearts we break.
Let’s just be until the universe pulls us apart and we inevitably break and return to our lonely selves. Let’s be until the skies shatter and the earth falls and the ground beneath us disappears. Let’s be betrayers. Let’s be unbreakable. Let’s be lovers. Let’s fly together to sinful places where no one can find us.