Wedding day! Ring the bells!

For the bride, the belle of the ball, the pride of us all, sing out!

For the groom, no doubt her one and only. Now she’ll never be lonely.

It’s agreed: she’ll never need another, no

“nothing but each other,” is what she put in the vows everyone bowed before, as if those silver rings ring out with power like kings’ crowns, as if the gown she wears is rare as lotus silk, as if the wedding cake is something sacred, as if us girls with bouquets are just

placeholders in her heart.

I’m not her “one and only” but she sure was mine,

my lifeline, my lighthouse in the rain…

it almost pains me

to see her hand in hand with a wedding band…

But I never expected to find understanding

in a world where rom coms dominate TV screens, and Valentines cards with bright red hearts are simply part of the tradition we call love...

Love. I hate the word. Like peace, it’s unachievable, inconceivable.

We think we are

halves of a soul, just part of a whole…

and it’s that hole we dig ourselves into until we drown, until we are buried under a mound

of other people’s expectations—

“They have to be your favorite,

your first and absolute priority,

with full authority over your heart.

They have to be your one and only, or you’ll spend your whole life lonely.”

But loneliness lies in that very notion,

that false, watered down emotion, shallow like small talk, like the shore of an ocean.

We are meant for community, not closed off doors; there’s so much more to love than that first glance of romance fed to us in spoonfuls.

Candles aren’t lesser than lanterns just because they’re different; when it gets dark they both give off light.

Love is the same.

But, of course, who am I to talk.