WINTER [is a bad time to] Fall in Love

I just realized I want to be in love. It would balance the hurt of this world, fill the space where wine once warmed me, smooth the jagged edge between receiving and deserving. Except now it's winter and everyone who has ever loved me is married or inaccessible in a way I don't understand. Somewhere in my brain space there exists a closet that generates wonderful men who have loved me and I haven't seen it in time and that closet will be empty someday, is my worry. They walk out and stand patiently and then walk on to women better suited for them. I'm not sure how much good will toward me exists in the Universe, but I tell myself it's massive. Any time theology slides into math or volume I get panicky. I'm fianlly paying attention but the closet door is closed and there are no sounds coming from inside. Chick magazine advice is just as vapid but now directed right at me. The list of words and songs and smells that make me ache with the power of all the love I'm shedding gets longer and more surprising every day until I worry I'll be permanently flushed and on the verge of tears. The only culture I've ever lived in appears to be all wrong (on this question, to me) and so I'm out in the cold, so to speak. I'll just keep riding the bus, downloading love songs, reading poetry, and drawing nonsense. The last part of my adolescence is blossoming in the cracked jar of my thirties, and what's to be done with that? On the upside my endless empathy can grow and grow as I finally get what the fuck is wrong with teenage girls, and also try to tattoo on my muscles how much it sucks to be outside in Chicago in the winter, alone.