no one in particular

sometimes, i'm afraid i will never love anything anyone again. the way a boy does. the way i did when i was a boy, when her face, from fifty feet away, made me smile, when i dreamt about her hair. were i reflected in her eye, under the perfect arch of her eyebrows, the whole world could shake and shatter to rubble, and i would laugh as it fell around me. she had that power.

i don't love anyone like that anymore. there is no such goddess.

today, i am something of a man, and a skeptical lover. my heart does not choke itself for a woman. could i ever really take so much pleasure from one woman, and how she smiled, and how she smelled and how she looked ever again? no...that was false, that was not true love. that was only illusion, and unfettered emotion, and the lie of romance.

i know that.

but God, it was passionate. i don't ever want to be with someone i couldn't love like that for the rest of my life. now, i am something of a man, and i don't know if its possible. is it too high a standard? too low? what is true love? how do you do it, or have it? what in the hell does it look like?