Artwork by Adams Cavarlho

There are four stages of a love affair: the lust with its inevitable pinks, its sparkles, bubbles and narrow angle views, followed by the projections with their inevitable chameleonism, when not only skins, but colours mingle as well until the fine line between I and us becomes transparent. The next stage is the unavoidable attachment, with its reds and greens, contrasts disguising the speed of separation and the desire to still believe in rainbows of all kinds: a rainbow named love, a rainbow named trust, a rainbow named hope. In the end comes the wisdom, with its purple coating, an universal dress up that we pull over our ageing shoulders as time the tyrant or the healer becomes our only reliable companion, when there is nothing left for us to do because us becomes I again, a purple coating whose necessity we cannot help question as if we face the sorrow of rearranging ourselves, our skins, our colours, our beliefs, a wisdom varnish that does not help us forget, but transform.

We sit on a bench in a park and I wonder if he will kiss me. We laugh and we imagine things while looking at the sky. It is slightly cold, so we stay close to each other.

We wait for my taxi to arrive and we kiss goodbye, slightly touching each other’s mouth corners. We look at each other. It is one of those moments when nobody thinks whether this is love or passion, it just is.

We are in a bar, we have wine and kiss and the waiter comes silently and changes the ashtray.

We sleep together and wake up in peace.

We kiss.

It is very cold outside, there is a thin layer of ice covering the streets, my back hurts and we meet briefly in a bar. I try not to ask anything about what’s happening with us or about the future.

I wait for another night of shared sleep and that night never arrives. I wander what I could do with my desire.

I’m furious and he says it’s okay, he understands. His arms around me still hold the capacity to calm me down. It’s comfortable to be forgiven.

The goodbye, we don’t waste it in tears, we spend it kissing. I say: I don’t want the taxi to arrive. I don’t want to be alone.

Days pass and I sit in my room and try to remember his touch.

Passion has the quality of a thunderstorm, it arrives unannounced and waters those insatiable areas in our hearts that are hungry for sharing, it ravishes all our exposed vulnerabilities, but eventually, when passion is gone, it washes away all the unnecessary beliefs. Love is a different dimension, love is reliable.

The only passion that is durable is the one we carry inside ourselves, all the others are flames, bright and inconsistent, that will eventually burn down. He says: I got carried away by my passion and I take a long time to meditate on his words. He says: I know how strongly you felt about us. I stop again to think about these pronouns: I, you, us. It is one of the saddest things when a desire for love meets a desire for passion. It is sad because it carries a misunderstanding, a failed communication will result into sadness. I wanted a reliable connection and he wanted an experience and now we are both heartbroken, but in different dimensions. And what was a shared connection transformed into an individual issue: putting the broken pieces together and hoping that in the future we will be able to withstand new fireworks or thunderstorms.

He says: I thought you will move on, meet new people and go on producing art. And I cannot help wonder if he ever understood how sensitive I really am, that my artwork is about how I feel and about encouraging people to be honest about their emotions. My art is genuine and I am sure people would tell if it were otherwise. I cannot just run away from myself and pretend there is indifference where it isn’t. I am 1.80 of poetry, I am all feelings, I am all thoughts and memories and desires. I have a passionate nature, but on top of it, I have a desire to love. And this desire to love is one of the most basic human needs: I want my passion to mingle with yours and make it ours, I don’t want a solitary passion that lights up every now and then, I want my passion to mingle with yours and make it withstand the unavoidable thunderstorms. And only then, we can call the passion, love.

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Laura Livia Grigore is a poet, painter and psychology enthusiast, with a background in space engineering. She likes to experiment with various mediums and types of writing. Her artwork is orientated on emotions, reflecting her opinion that most of the answers we need can be found inside ourselves, although the hardest thing to do is to be sincere with oneself. You can purchase her book here. 

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