28 Comments
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maria's avatar

I really enjoyed this piece and it made me think about how the same walls we put up to protect us from getting hurt are the same ones keeping love out!

Donna's avatar

The quote “we’re all romantics pretending to be pragmatists” made me wonder whether we can be both romantic realists.

sanskriti's avatar

oh this had me PONDERING but i’d like to think the answer is yes :,)

MHill's avatar

eeks! scary good and beautiful 💕💕

Tom White's avatar

Carl Jung put it simply and elegantly: "God enters through the wound." He who is Love incarnate requires a pinch, a pang, and a piercing to imbue perfect passion.

I wrote about this:

“When two souls collide at high speed, Wreckage ensues and debris embeds. Collateral damage is necessary when two become

One.

Feelings lodge deep like shrapnel.

To pull them out would be suicide—

Too much blood lost far too quickly.”

More: https://www.whitenoise.email/p/love-is-a-car-crash

Shahzeb's avatar

Sherry it's too early to be this loud in the morning.

Meheru Alaspure's avatar

The amount of fear I felt reading those words explains exactly how true they are. In my case instead of psychoanalysing the Other, I just pretend to have completely lobotomized their neurochemistry; as if the way their ventral tegmental area lights up upon seeing me is etched into my hippocampus. (That comment was so performative)

Kamilah Khelili's avatar

“I have a hunch that we’re all romantics pretending to be pragmatists, terrified that if we admitted how honestly we want to be swept away by love, we’d have to face what we’ve become: cowardly keepers of desires too weak to break us open. We’d have to admit that we’ve made our lives so small, our wantings so manageable, that nothing glorious could ever fit through the door.” - yep that’s me

sanskriti's avatar

beautiful work <3 the very same themes have been on my mind as well & i simply had to write about it ; “I was talking to one of my friends about how its getting increasingly harder to come about good mainstream art about love, and I find this lack on Substack as well—which saddens me a little bit as a girl who grew up on daydreams and dog-eared romance novels.

Its a good thing we don’t have as much of an evolutionary need for love, don’t get me wrong, but what about the want? Can we ever truly escape that?

I think we don’t write about love the same way anymore because we don’t think about love the same way anymore because we don’t believe in love the same way anymore”. (although you’re making me now realize it might be because we don’t actually want to think about it the same these days :,))

Ritika Patel's avatar

"We are all romantics pretending to be pragmatists" , beautifully written!

Austin Ball's avatar

Feet planted firmly on the ground, gazing up at the clouds with longing, buried deep, too proud to relinquish the dream of flight, lounging in the dirt, in weary gratitude of its consolatory dross

Alisa Valentina's avatar

And conversely, fantasies provide comfort and escape yet no transcendence. And they are fun until bill is due and ppl realize you cannot replicate the divine.

In both instances you pay, but with love you receive something greater. But with Fantasy, you feel scammed in the end.

ripscreates's avatar

"Desire is a rapture that levitates you out of isolation."

...and i believe Love is an invitation for collaborative creation!

Partyrat's avatar

I love how you’ve captured it all ❤️ You’re right.

Naomi Homs's avatar

never read something so true

Tommy Dixon's avatar

This is excellent, Sherry

Ali Begun's avatar

Loved it 🤍🤍