A SPECIAL PRESENTATION: …LOVE

You’re asleep.

You awake to the soft sound of bells, nearly inaudible but you hear them. You seek them and walk through the door. A projector turns on in an empty otherwise unlit room.

…LOVE shines a light. All is revealed: your relationship with God, your relationship with yourself, your desires, your weaknesses, your insecurities.

You didn’t choose this. It chose you — and your feelings are all that are yours: ecstasy, or maybe pain and suffering.

…LOVE: the hard-hearted will say it isn’t real but even they love something, their own suffering, maybe.

Mom. Dad. Grandma. Grandpa. Perhaps your loved one isn’t a person. They are a love object. Their humanity is erased by your projection. Or perhaps you love an actual object. A collection.

…LOVE: hard to say what it even is.

Today, on this Valentine’s Day, we seek to finally define it. Define it by what it is. Define it by what it is not. Lust, attachment, transference.

It’s easy to say all the love stories have all been told, all the love poems written. But no real love story is alike. And the mystics, malcontents, misfits, and maligned must find the ringing bells and illuminate the room.

***

BATHWATER by G. Cameron Perry

COMFORT STATION by Gwen Hilton

“CORNUCOPIA” by Aldous Asterion

CUPID’S DAGGER by Russell Thayer

GET THAT NUT! by Brad Kelly

JIMMY’S MOTHER DIED by William Dustice

KISSING THE ROBOT by Keltie Zubko

MIDNIGHT IN LOVE by Arbogast

“NO TAKERS” by Atsushi Ikeda

ON THE BLINK by Dia VanGunten and Beppi

THE PRISONER by Chris Heavener

SHNOOKUMS by plasticbagger

“SNAIL MAIL” by Paul Hostovsky

THE SONG OF THE HARPER by Elliott Neal

SOUTH BEACH by Evan McConahay

SUMMER OF ED AND KALLIE by Nathan Pettigrew

THINGS ARE LOOKING UP by Warren Benedetto

A TOWN IN THE WOODS by Steve Gergley

TWO QUINTAINS by Humphrey ‘Huck’ Astley

UNTITLED (2023) by Matthew Kinlin

“WIGGLING TOES” by Trout Fish

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