We kill for love, and yet we can kill love.

Love never dies a natural death.

And it makes me a killer, a murderer, a slayer or simply an emotion sucker the least.

This quote reminds me to stay mindful of holding close to best intention and remembering to take care of myself and others --- but I have the tendency to fail too.

I AM HUMAN.

 I am fully aware of my emotional state: being away from home, being away from the familiar places where I once roamed and sought refuge when I was heartbroken, misguided, hated and unwanted. And because of that awareness and the sanity that is always present in me, it's enough to know what I need to take care of myself makes it possible to be available and open enough to give and receive love.. I am capable of both.

I sometimes think of the connections I have with certain people as being made of tender flesh and bone, mortal connective tissue, a strong and yet vulnerable body or personae who lives between us and has a hand on both our hearts.

We can feed, pamper and nurture that body that connects us; like it's our precious child. If we're good caretakers of it, we will help it grow stronger with our ever present love and attention. If we know it's value, we will fiercely protect it from the dangers we know are out there (and within us) and that our experience has shown us will threaten its health and make our precious connection less resilient. If we are mindful of our responsibilities and can stay close to the love we feel for each other, we will treat our connections like living and mortal things.

Or we can ignore the precious nature of our connections, use the tender flesh that has a hand on both our hearts to lash out at it's weaknesses or mistakes. If we're not mindful of all the ways that our connection lives and breathes and grows as we do, we will push it too hard or too fast to be stronger than it's able to be; we won't let it grow strong enough and don't care for it well enough before we start testing it and trying to put it to work for us. We come to see the connection as a life raft, a support system, and infinite Atlas who will carry our heaven on his shoulders. We expect that the connection that exists between us is stronger than we are.

If we are not mindful, we will mistakenly think its purpose is to feed us instead of being nurtured by us. We will expect it to guide us and give us direction, we will call it names, blame it for our failings or our unhappiness. We will cling to its joyous nature, its wellspring of love and energy and assume that they will always be ours for the taking. We will act like it owes us something, like it has no needs of its own, like it has a bank account that never decreases. We will push and probe and test our precious, tender, vulnerable connection assuming that if it's real and true, it has to be strong enough so that it can take our beatings, our neglect, our lack of consideration, our stupidity and our selfishness.

Too many tests, too many injuries and bruises, too much neglect and mistreatment and the connection withers and dies. Or, as is often the case, because love is strong and doesn't give up easily, it kicks and screams and wails for months and months, taking each of our hearts in its hot little hands and squeezing with all it's might to try to shock us back into being alive and awake to it. But when the pain of those last ditch heart shocks wear off and there's no hope left for recovery, it lets go and the connection is gone. :(

 When love is killed, it buries the voice that used to shout the love that once we had. The worst thing will be is not to be able to say goodbye -- and that will be the saddest thing to happen before death.

Good night. T.T

o0o