Love is impossible to describe. Even the world’s greatest poets, Shakespeare, Keats, and Longfellow, have not done it justice. This is because love is a feeling and no combination of words, no matter how elegantly they sit on the page, can make you feel the intensity of love. Yet love is around us everyday. Maybe you’re even in love yourself. But what is this mysterious force that can bring complete euphoria one day and soul-deadening misery the next?
If I had to describe love, I would say it is like going on a quiet walk on a warm summer evening. The sun begins to set behind the trees and the golden light resolutely slips through any break in the leaves, determined to make this day last until the final possible second. The air is heavy with life. Fresh flowers, onion grass, lawn trimmings, a campfire. You stop for a second, resting on a rock, and for the first time you hear how incredibly loud it is. You hear a car passing in the distance, and the hundred varied calls of birds. You hear the leaves rustling around you. You hear the playful shouts of children across the freshly cut lawns that seem to stretch on for eternity.
And then you hear a rumble coming from your stomach. You feel something shift inside you, and you hear what sounds like someone using a straw to blow bubbles into a bowl of oatmeal. You feel that unmistakable pressure on your sphincter. You need to get home, and fast.
It’s the kind of situation where you know that if you start running, it will just work itself out, so you are left doing a sort of stiff-legged power walk. You probably look ridiculous, but you don’t care. You’re thinking about one thing, and one thing only: getting home, and making Two. Your keys are in your hand well before you reach your front door, and you awkwardly jab them at the keyhole, missing the first couple times. You take a deep breath, and slip the key in. It turns with a satisfying click, just as another internal geyser goes off. You throw open the door and stumble to the bathroom. Threat Level Brown, you think to yourself as your hurriedly drop your pants.
The second your bare ass touches the toilet seat, it starts to fall out of you. You marvel at the effortlessness of it all. Just the universe trying to balance itself out. After you have what you think is a good bowlful, you stand up to flush, but before you do you turn around and inspect your work. You see your loaf, partially protruding out of the water. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, you think to yourself with a grin. Your hand slides along the cool, metal handle of the commode lever. This is the moment of truth. It’s roughly the size of a Chipotle burrito, and in all honesty, you don’t know if your pipes can handle it. You press the lever down and close your eyes. You hear the slap, slap, slap of water disappearing down the drain, and the steady hiss of the bowl re-filling. You open your eyes and see that it all went down. It all went down.
And that is how I would describe love.
Ghostcourt 