"Don't let love pass you by..."

[I wrote this piece during another season of my life, and never posted it.  I found it tonight, and I thought I'd share.]

"Don't let love pass you by," he said.

And I didn't.  As love ambled by, I reached out and yanked it toward me.  We struggled for a long while out in the dark, abandoned alley.  And at the end, I lost.  Love passed me by.  Regardless of my struggle, my strength, my desire, love won.  And it passed me by.  Now I stand here still, in that alley of love-passing.  I reflect on love, on its passing, on its path of destruction, the death it wrought on my hopes.

"Don't let love pass you by," he said.

And I am so glad I couldn't prevent its passing.  What if love had stayed?  A circling storm, centered on my heart.  A penned bull, rampaging and infuriated.  A beautiful disaster consuming my heart and soul from the inside out.

"Don't let love pass you by," he said.

One day soon, love will again pass by, in all its seductive glory.  And I won't have a choice.  I will leap out of the shadows, grip it by the throat, and we will dance the dance of death.  I won't allow it to pass by unhindered, for love will not allow my ambivalence.  Love won't allow my disinterest.  Love will not pass me by without having a day with me.

Love: the ultimate death, the ultimate opponent, the ultimate victor.

"Don't let love pass you by," he said.

Perhaps the more appropriate statement, I think to myself, would be: "When love passes, it will always win.  You will always lose.  Until one day, when quite inexplicably, you will win."