When All Other Lights Go Out (Love Disease) Poem by Yaritza Florencio

Love is a disease
A rare one that causes dizziness, brain damage, drowsiness
Intense daydreaming and insomnia
It starts out slow with bouts of self criticisms in the morning in front of your mirror
Then it accelerates with self denial
Slowly you lose the denial and realize you’re in love
That’s why love is not being crazy because when you’re in love you know it
It continues with having random thoughts and sporadic actions
You then start feeling heavy around your midsection, a feeling of foreshadowed dread often described as “Butterflies”
These steps repeat until all of the sudden
They stop, and behind they leave the most terrible and excruciating pain of absolute loneliness
This step of the love disease is curable only by restarting the cycle
And so on and so forth
There should be no pause in between said actions, for the pain will not allow such loneliness to creep back into your veins
Because your lungs cannot survive the pain of breathing and not feeling the air in your chest
Because your stomach fears the pain of forgetting the taste of food
Fears the pain of drinking water and not feeling the cool liquid, but a fiery substance
This thing called love cannot be avoided as it is not an epidemic, or an inherited trait
It is one thing and one thing only….a drug you are born addicted to
Because it is a drug most mother feed their offspring while in the womb and if not a mother than some foreign agent that cannot be humanly understood
But a warning to the practices of this drug is that even though it is dangerous to take it is even more of a danger to abstain from the use of it
Yes, it is more dangerous to not take the drug, then it is to take it.
But you must understand, I do not encourage its use as it is painful beyond belief, a user myself I can personally attest to these facts.
But above all my dear patient you must remember that although love is recurrent and can be held many times, it can only be truly felt once.
Your heart is an object with only one rule
“It can only be given once, and only to one person”
For when you give this strange possession away, it can never be returned
Willingly, or unwillingly a heart stays with the person to whom it was originally given
It will never come back to its owner, as it finds a painful, yet satisfactory home in the place where it was first laid
The heart will live out its existence with only a memory if it must; even when it is cast out it remains, holding on to dear life
Because it is holding on for life, for a heart can die…but do not get confused, love does not taste the sweet of death along with a heart, the first love given remains when all else has long since perished.
Dear patients, do not intend to believe that this can be controlled, for it is above all else a long forgotten science, an undetected mystery and to be feared more than any humanly made reaction. Treasure the few moments of peace before the drug takes effect at dawn, but do not cease to take it if dosage has already started. This love can cause death, make no mistake about it, when dealing with such a drug you deal with the fire hell itself, such is the fight against this addiction. Such is my fight and the fight of us all.
Dear patients one last thing never tell others of where your hearts lie, never disclose the location of such a valued item. Hearts are so cleverly devised that one could be in your pocket this second, and you have no recollection of its existence. Treasure the first time to take the concentrated form of this drug, and treasure the secret of the place were such a things dwells and let it be a comfort for you when all other comforts cease to exist, a breath when air leaves you and a light when all other lights go out.