F …is for Friendship, M …is for Marriage, L …is for Love…

W …is for Whateva!

“The love is there, but I don’t love you”… Handwritten on a single piece of writing paper that arrived in the post. Best “I’m dumping you” I think I ever received at school. It ended a week long relationship, which was probably the longest relationship I ever had growing up.

It’s that W-Word that was the problem.

There are millions of teenagers around the world that should know that their answer to most situations, the word “whateva”, was actually invented by yours truly over 20 years ago… Date a girl, she likes my friend more… whateva!   Invite a girl to the School Disco, forget I did, invite her friend, get rude letters… whateva!   “Norman. You change your feelings for girls as often as you change your underpants”… whateva!   Date 4 girls at the same time (3 of them with the same first name), get caught… whateva!   “The love is there… But I don’t love you”… whateva!

Have a smoke, go for a swim, pick a fight with a 1st Team Rugby Player… Life goes on.

I’m not anti-love (I’m a poet, after-all), I just have a hard time believing in the whole “madly in love, head-over-heels, can’t eat, butterflies in the tummy” thing. Not sure those kind of relationships last really… Right up there with “young love”, “healing love” and “rebound love”. What happens when one of you grows up or becomes “whole” or heals?

I’m all for relationships, though, and connecting with people. I just think we should connect for the sake of connecting and not look so hard for “love”. Or our warped perceptions of what love actually is. We don’t need to be “in love” for you to want to spend time with me and I don’t need to be holding your hand to be able to touch your soul.

But, hey… The possibilities still intrique me and like everything else I have to say, you’re welcome to read through it, give it some consideration and say, “whateva”.

SILENT OPHELIA

How is it possible?

That I dream of you, yet I’ve never met you?
Sketch you, yet I’ve never touched your face?
Yearn for you, yet I’ve never lost you?

~ by Norm on July 2, 2010.