I Want To Know What Love Is

I Want To Know What Love Is

By Mantis

(Song by Foreigner)

           It's happening again.
         It had happened before – twice before, actually. Except that it wasn't really it those times.
         Before I realized the truth, I had become awash in its promise of exultation, had embraced it fiercely. Feeling it for the first time, deeply, right down to the core of my emotions, it provided me a glimpse at what a profound purpose in life might actually look like – something that until then remained vague and undefined in my mind, leaving me to wander through life aimless and unfulfilled. I was left nearly breathless at times by it as I experienced hints at the heights of joy that could be attained by living in it, such as from nothing else in this world. Its impact on me was enlightening, and I'd lay awake some nights thinking about it. I came to see it in my mind's eye as the most fertile of soils upon which the human spirit can sprout and grow and thrive best. I swooned under seeing the resplendent life it bespoke.
         But I came to find that it was only but a ghost those times before, a phantom presence of love that deigned to breeze into my life, introduce itself, haunt me, mesmerize me, and then spurn me.
         It was not truly it, only just a ghost. And as ghosts do, it soon ran from me, fleeting and spiteful, leaving me miserable and morose and hollowed, stoned and wasted, stealing its promise away in the flick of an eye with scornful abandon, as do the most virulently sadistic of ghosts.
         But as time passed, as hurt by that wraith of love as I was, I just couldn't maintain a view of love itself as something sadistic. How could something so beautiful, something so consuming in its effusion of goodness and wellbeing, be wrought with such underpinnings of treachery? 
         Instead I began to feel that it was Rachel and Tammy themselves who were wrought of such tendencies. With them laid the blame for the blackness that followed both breakups.
         But seeing them in that light was hard for me. Seeing the ghost was much easier. They were, after all, so important to me, so cherished for a time, the weight of their beauty and poise and their endearing souls felt within me with such poignancy. But love had never really been present. Both Rachel and Tammy were merely conduits chosen by that wayward Ghost of Love in which to rake into my life, excite me, lure me into hopefulness, tease me, and ultimately vex me.
         The experiences I had with them and the heady, illuminating emotions which both fostered in me, are memories and feelings that I would have cherished unto my death – had Love not turned out to be only just a ghostly visage, a demon lurking behind a billowy veil of lust and lies.
         Memories. Like that day Tammy and I sat chatting on the swing set out in Ventnor park before we were lovers. She'd clumsily fallen off her swing, laughing and bellowing discord at the world. I remember her subsequent pretense of being hurt, seeking my hurried assistance to tend to what I now know was a fiendishly faked bruise on her chin. She'd implored me to inspect it, to get close in and report if there were any marks which might mar her beauty, in which I complied without hesitation, concerned as I was. And her then reaching for me, grasping me, revealing the trap she'd set for me, the expression on her face an uncanny juxtaposition between playful treachery, focused intention, uncertainty, wonderment, confusion, dire sexuality. I remember that look as clearly as I remember the lines of my own face in the mirror this morning. I remember her pulling me to her with urgency, with a strength in her petite frame that I will never forget. And it was in the taste of her sudden kiss upon my unsuspecting lips that the phantom ghost rose from some latent miasma to make my acquaintance.
         When it ended with Tammy, I was broken. The ghost scared me bad. It cowed me into the corner, left me cowering and shaking in fear of ever seeing it again. How could I ever love again, never knowing if real love was actually there to cradle me in its embrace, or if I was again being preyed upon by that wicked ghost? The thought of ever being in its horrible presence again chilled me. I remained aloof and distant to all the women in my life for a time.
         And then I found Rachel. Her sumptuous curves and her witty banter were too much for me. The smell of her perfume and the sparkle in her eyes set upon her ever-smiling face, instilled a supposition in my mind: That the ghost was far away somewhere, and that love itself, the real thing, was poised in waiting. Rachel took hold of me, cast a spell on me, and I was compelled to finally grow some emotional balls. I gave the finger to the Ghost of Love, shivered a little bit, and took her.
         We dove right into lovemaking, and I spent many steamy nights with her. But I found myself continually searching for the touch of love early on, to no avail. There was a relieving certainty in my mind, a sense that I was free from the Ghost of Love, but there was also nothing really there at all… nothing but lust. I wondered why, absent of the ghost, I could not feel the presence of true love taking its place? I began to surmise this thing with Rachel was only about the sex.
         Although, in time, through the intimacies of pillow talk, Rachel began to reveal herself. She was hesitant at first, which was why love had remained aloof, for I realized that love was about much more than just good sex. But soon I was properly introduced to the woman behind the torrid sexuality. She gained trust in me, slowly began to take me under her confidence, and soon I was steamrolled by discoveries about her mind and soul that made me feel so akin to her.
         There was no one like her when it came to intimate discussions in bed. To be held so tight by such a voluptuous woman, our faces so close together that our noses often brushed one another, all the while enveloped in her warm, intoxicating breath which accompanied her every word, my heart was set to pounding in learning about who she really was.
         She described her fears to me in those intimate moments: Her fear of facing and dealing with her parent's eventual death, and her fear of never finding love and being alone for the rest of her life. Her fear that her apartment was surely going to be infested with cockroaches – her squeamishness about that was so funny and endearing to me. She made me want to protect and comfort her.
         She told me about her dreams. She wanted to learn how to fly a plane. Once, she described the effect on her of seeing the magnificent landscape rolling beneath her while on a flight. Her discourse was presented to me in such an eloquent, breathy fashion that I found myself suddenly transported to a movie theater, sat there watching a film showing a bird's eye view of grand, blue-black, snow-capped mountains from high aloft, or desert plateaus painted in deepest shades of gold under vibrant blue skies with multitude ravines snaking down the cliffs at their perimeter. She could paint such vivid pictures with her words sometimes. She told me how she wanted to finally complete her studies, take the train commute into the city every morning adorned in her business suit and carrying her briefcase, along side all the other businessmen, where they would ignore her just as they ignored each other, where she would fit in with them as just another distinguished, cologne-scented professional, and not be ogled after for her tits and ass.
         Indeed, I learned so much more about her than just the luscious scent of her sex, the tightness with which I fit into place inside her, or the salty taste of her nipples. And I loved everything I learned about her.
         I loved her. It had happened again.
         I remembered the ghost. I cringed at the thought that it was perhaps pursuing me again, baiting me. I feared the ghost, and didn't think that I could survive another haunting by it. I nearly wanted to place candles, initiate some ancient, Celtic ritual to ward off that ectoplasmic fiend forever.
         But this was Rachel, this was not Tammy! Surely the Ghost of Love had no place here between myself and the woman of my dreams – right?
         WRONG.
         My breakup with Rachel was bitter. The Ghost of Love's cackling laughter echoed in my ears, summarily mocking me until it slowly faded away with the ghost's return to its otherworldly dimension.
         I may not know love, but I knew hate then. I knew hate very well. And I knew fear too. I hated and feared the Ghost of Love, hated it with all my heart.

***

         

         It's happening again.
         Her name is Lisa. She's a psychologist by trade. Outside of her work, but inside the confines of our relationship, she compels me to open up about myself. She's drawn out my greatest fears and loathings, and has become privy to the Ghost of Love which has always haunted me.
         But as I cower in fear of the ghost, Lisa is not afraid of it. She taunts it and reviles it, dares it to come scurrying out of the murky shadows and show its hideous face, dares it to have the nerve to set foot in our presence and face her.
         And she tells me that when she gets her hands on it, she'll eat it alive!
         I find myself wrapped in Lisa's embrace every night when we're together. There is nothing to be feared while in her arms, no ghosts or demons, because there is nothing but warmth. Warmth, and nothing else! Ghosts, who when in our presence cause the temperature to plummet and turn our breath to clouds, cannot survive that warmth. The Ghost of Love is stifled by Lisa's warmth. And somehow I now know that will be the case forever.
         I love her so much. I bask in the strength and fearlessness of her convictions. I see the way she trusts in love, and dismisses the ghosts, rather setting blame on ourselves for failed intimacies. She teaches me, and I can see, can almost reach out and touch real love in my midst which seems to swirl about and cling to her like a sycophant obsessed. She clarifies in my mind the folly of my prior outlook – of seeing ghosts and fiends in place of taking rightful blame myself; of refusing to see the real fiend in the mirror. In all her interactions with me, she fills me with inspiration.
         I want her to show me. And it is with her that I think I will finally know what love is. She's very convincing that way…

Word count: 1879