Feline Laments - 2. Surviving Love

Surviving Love

Before you can love you must

First become acquainted with yourself-the quirks, habits, traits

That make up the core of your identity.

You must come to appreciate yourself, and

Realize that only you last your lifetime.

For love is a fickle, finite thing.

Joy-when you finally achieve its ephemeral intoxication,

Anguish-when it finally shreds your heart and soul,

Leaving nothing behind but savage torment—

A cold, dark agony that rips apart the very essence of your life.

Countless men and women have been destroyed by that agony -

It strikes at your lowest, your weakest,

When you are unprotected and unprepared for its bite.

But those who have first come to love themselves before others,

Cherish themselves before others,

Understand themselves before others,

Have become armored against the crippling blows of despair.