Diseased

Nobody tells you how sick you get when love touches you for the first time

You spend your whole life being pre-exposed to it

You catch mild cases of it here and there with some people you meet

It’s all superficial

Topical

Benign

Short-term

You wash it off in the shower

Sweat it out when you should be saying your prayers and going to sleep

And grow out of it when your brain gets a little bigger

One day you catch it again It’s different this time

You’re not a little kid looking for it anymore

You’re older now

Afraid

Cynical

Unprepared

You don’t want it anymore

There’s no time for it

Who would even feel the same way?

Nobody, that’s who

Absolutely nobody

Then there he is...

A dimpled tower scraping the sky and suddenly...

You’re not just sick anymore

Now you’re ill

Now your chest hurts as your heart beats with a need to connect with his heart

Your body aches with a craving to be near him

Your skin burns with a desperation to feel his warmth

It’s terminal

Painful

Horrifying

Morbid

He’s a fever dream

You can’t sweat him out

Your only choice is to absorb him

And as he roots himself onto your insides, he spreads across your inner being like an infection until just the feel of his name forming at the back of your throat weakens the only sliver of your heart that he hasn’t soiled yet

It gets worst as you wonder what it feels like to touch his face

To kiss him good night

To see your lipstick stain his mouth

To forever hold him in your arms the way the infection holds you

He prickles over your skin like fire and somehow you still shiver

He’s an icy embrace of cold air from the window that the child in you left open

You wanted this

Somewhere deep inside you

In the isolated dens of your mind

You craved an illness before you even knew what it really was

Before you were able to comprehend how brutally it would kill you daily

You’re not even sure if looking him in his eyes is curing you or pushing the infection deeper into you

You’re mind and body are ice storms and desert droughts of confusion, bliss, and uncertainty

Because how can an illness possibly feel this good?

How can the throb of death be so satisfying?

How can suffocation taste so sweet?

Nobody told you that love is an illness of the mind

Nobody told you that it’s a plague...

Or maybe they did but who can be sure?

Love always takes the mind first anyway