By Erina Vasilakopoulou

What is love?

Love is but an illusion.

Tainted by the ignorance of mind

And amoral gullibility

When are you in love with someone?

How many nights have you spent thinking about them and smiling to yourself like a 5-year old toddler that was given candy?

I’m sure that could count as love right?

Well, skip forward a few weeks, months, years.

Now they’re hugging someone else, they’re laughing with someone else, they’re happy with someone else.

They don’t see you anymore. You are nothing but a person from the past.

How many nights will you spent thinking about them ,

and crying yourself to sleep, like a 5-year old toddler, that someone stole his candy?

Do you still think it was love back then?

Yes, because you’re hurting. That means you loved them, right?

But is love supposed to hurt? Love and pain are set apart by a very thin line. It sounds so wrong, so very wrong. Love is not supposed to hurt. Love is supposed to have a positive meaning.

And did they ever love you? Is it possible for them to have loved you before and to have stopped loving you after a while? Can you stop loving someone?

And if you do, was it ever love in the first place?

So what is love?

Love is but a selfish obsession.

Obligatory devotion.

Passionate lust.

Hidden under a beautiful quilt.

That sounds harsh. An obsession is not a healthy  behavior, it doesn’t have a positive meaning.

Love isn’t supposed to have a negative meaning right?

Right, but then why are you so «obsessed» with them? Why does your mood depends on them to a great extent if not completely? Why do you want to see them everytime you’re not with them? Why do you find excuses to talk to them, for no apparent reason? Why, if not because you’re obsessed with them?

Maybe that’s not love either. Maybe that’s exactly what it sounds like, an obsession. An obsession with the idea of someone, the idea of being with them.

Love is but an idea.

That’s depressing. Love is such a beautiful word, for it not to be true. But maybe exactly for that, it doesn’t exist. Unicorns and Pegasus are some of the most extraordinary and beautiful creatures to exist. But wait, they don’t actually exist. They are not real. So maybe love is not real either.

Who is to tell though that unicorns and Pegasus don’t exist? How can you prove that something is not there? You can’t.

So maybe love does exist.

If so, what is love?

Well, I don’t know. I have no idea what love is, but maybe we can pretend. We can pretend that we know what love is, when we say I love you. We can pretend that we can set apart love from lust, passion, pain, fear, self-sacrifice, obsession.

We can pretend. Just for a while… And maybe by pretending you will actually find out eventually. Fake it till you make it, don’t they say? That doesn’t sound right either. I don’t like to think love is fake.

But then, what is love?

Love is but a fall.

We fall many times in our lifetime, we fall during the first months of our lives when we learn to walk, we fall during our childhood when we’re playing, we fall during our teenage years. But that’s a different kind of fall, that’s falling in love.

Maybe that’s why I prefer the term falling in love, than the greek word «erotevomai»

Because it includes the fall.

With that at least, I’m actually familiar.

I think I know what love is.

Love isn’t something you can determine exactly. Love is the X in an equation. It doesn’t have a form, or a specific feeling. Love isn’t supposed to be something. It just is. And maybe that’s the magic of it all. You just put the X in the equation and find the result.

And like equations are impossible, maybe love is nothing of the above.

And like equations are possible for every number, maybe love is all of the above.

 You can’t determine it, unless you solve it. So, go ahead.

Find out, what love is.

 

Images Source:

https://gr.pinterest.com/pin/259168153550016098/

https://gr.pinterest.com/pin/586593920230392739/

 

The Void of Joy

(By Trisevgeni Tzefriou)

The lights off

eyes tired

the celebration is over

and a void in their hearts.

Now black Hope

lost sunbeam

everything ends

dreams melt

Hollow feelings

heart with spaces

they left a canoe

the purity was extinguished

Oh! joys with emptiness

Oh! celebrations with air

Oh! you who cheat

you are trampling on freedom

————————————————————————————

“Το κενό… της xαράς”

τα φωτάκια σβησμένα

τα μάτια κουρασμένα

η γιορτή τελείωσε

και ένα κενό στις καρδιές τους.

Τώρα μαύρη ελπίδα

χαμένη ηλιαχτίδα

όλα τελειώνουν

τα όνειρα λιώνουν.

Κούφια αισθήματα

καρδιά με διαστήματα

ένα κενό αφήσαν

την αγνότητα σβήσαν.

Ω! χαρές με κενό

Ω! γιορτές με αέρα

Ω! εσείς που εξαπατάτε

την ελευθερία καταπατάτε.

Life is a challenge

 (By Andriana Skaltsa)

Running through this maze

That we call life

Finding the strength

In order to get by

 

Try stay focused

Cause life won’t be easy

 Be courageous

And you will thrive

 

Keep your heart safe

Away from the darkness

Find hope

And go after happiness

 

If our lives were easy,

If we didn’t fall,

And without challenges,

Will we learn at all?

 

Seeking out glory

Trying to be great

Even with the trials

Life is worth the wait

Greed

By Eleni-Maria Trianti

 

And then, I was on a boat, all alone,

In an ocean that seemed as if it was my own,

The paddle had drowned, along with my ambition.

What’s the worth of an agent without a mission?

As the time flew by,

The need to quench my thirst grew stronger on the inside.

So, I looked around,

And I thought “water’s nowhere to be found”.

I looked around again, twice and thrice.

I could drink the water, but, at what price?

So, I proceeded to drink,

Since I was unable to think.

But, the thirst inside me grew stronger and stronger.

Is this it? Is it over?

Why is it that I never succeed?

Could it be because of my greed?

 

Beauty

By Myrto Zapandioti

 

They pulled out your horns, your claws, your fangs

They carved them into necklaces and wrapped them around your neck

You’re finally beautiful; watery eyes and bloody gums

But you smile

 

You smile because you were ordered to

You smile because your life depends on it

Your teeth holding back the blood in your mouth

Your teeth holding back your pain

 

You open your mouth and the blood comes gashing out

But your blood is not beautiful

So you never open your mouth again

You never speak, you never think

You just smile

 

The others look down on you now

They have sharp claws, like the ones you had before they took them away from you

Now you have become weak

You have become their target

 

As their claws are piercing your soft skin

You are being told to smile once more

Because your screams aren’t pretty

Neither is your blood because your blood is yours

And you are not beautiful; only your pain is.