Waves

Love is not for the faint of heart, they say.
And we are young and our hearts,
our hearts may be developed,
but they are not strong enough.
So we love hard first.
Our hearts haven't felt the pain of breakage,
so we dive into the perfection.
When we hit that first wave,
we swim through it.
We hit another wave,
and it takes longer to catch our breath,
after we push through.
The next wave submerges us.
There's water in our noses.
The salt burns our eyes.
We swallow too much and get sick.
Then it all comes crashing down so hard.
It all comes crashing down and we are crying.
But the tears and the water taste the same.
And no one can hear us in the middle of the sea,
drowning.
It takes so long to swim to shore.
We collapse on the sand.
We pass out.
We awaken and pull ourselves up.
Or sometimes we are saved.
The next time we dive in,
we won't swim out so far.
We will steer clear of the waves we cannot push through.
We may choose to wade in the shallow waters sometimes.
But as all lovers and swimmers do,
we return to the ocean.
We can't imagine living,
without the warm caress of the briny blue sea.
Without love.