This Is Why I Don't Do Love {a Poem}

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1)You walk into it slowly; like wading into an ice cold swimming pool on summer mornings when the sun has not yet come out, one toe in at a time, until you're nearly submerged and

2)At first it swallows you in an overwhelming tide of emotions and wave upon wave of anxious wondering; there are no rules to the game (because, in essence, that's what it is,) only that

3)There are two types of people; those who realize the are caught in the grasp of it immediately, and embrace the fact; and those who do not realize that their love is eating at them like a parasite, worming itself into their heart until it's too late to escape the writhing tangles and locks of madness that follows. I've never been the latter, though I know for a fact that

4)Though the madness consumes you, therapy can cure you faster than fate will.

5)Those who choose to embrace it risk the splintering of a heart bound too fragile to be whole again, and are at the mercy of their cruel fate which can either end in two ways: either

6)They find true love and pledge their souls to one another, binding their hearts and love as one, or

7)One succumbs to the charming allure of another before they realize that they were never at heart of the other, and realize that their swooning love was only beheld in the eye of one and not shared, tearing at their heartstrings and playing with the shards of their heart.

8)It's really not worth the risk; actually, that depends on how you look at it. But in actually, in my opinion:

9)It's not worth the pounding heartbeats and stunted breathing and agonizing over-analyzation that novels and pop culture glories and romanticizes. Besides: there's not a man alive that can tell me what to do, and

10)Once a heart turns to steel, it's harder to break a second time.