I would make a love spell, if I could, made of the torn pages of a romance novel, rose petals plucked under the darkness of night, and the bloody suture that stitched the pieces of my heart back together after I was so careless with it.
I would take these things and mash them together between the teeth of my mortar and pestle, along with dandelion seeds and olive oil and dirty thoughts and ground cinnamon and the sweetness of a spring morning. I’d bind it with my spit and tears and hope.
I would even drink this potion if I could. Swallow it all down with a spoonful of honey to soften the intensity of this longing and think of nothing but seeds and fruition as it slid down my throat.
If a love spell would bring me what I want, I would dance naked under the moon and use strands of my hair to weave together an impossible unbreakable love story. I would work long hours just to be able to afford that small crystal bottle full of hazy pink liquid tucked safely behind the glass counter in that one occult shop everyone knows but says they’ve never been to.
But it’s no use.
No use trying to conjure warms hands and a beating heart from chicken bones and ribbon. Or the soft sincerity of an appreciative gaze from glitter and sanding sugar, let alone the gooey warm feeling of being safe in another’s arms—you could try melted chocolate on the tongue or cocoa butter rubbed into your skin. But it won’t work.
These sorts of love spells never do.
I’ll tell you what does—though you won’t believe me. Amateurs never do.
It starts inside, a slow steady drumbeat in your body. Follow that song—out into the meadows and let the birds join in the symphony. Don’t try to pin down the feeling or stuff it in a jar. Just let this lightness wrap around you and tease your skin like a lover’s fingers.
Don’t look too hard, either, for the thing you think you want. Just fill yourself up with the luscious energy that makes you feel whole without arms to hold you—those will come in time.
Now here comes the hard part: Shake off the desperation. Shut out the voices that say too old too hard too picky too aloof too needy too demanding too sexy too strange too wild too much. All they’re really saying is that they wish they were brave enough to dance with the meadow bees in broad daylight. Unafraid and safe in the knowledge that the Universe is wiser than you and easily bypasses your childish attempts to control your future. What you want right here and now—the thing you try to capture with your butterfly net—it’s inside you, not in paperback pulp and shredded roses.
So stop waiting for it to happen to you. This love story.
You are a love story. Know it. Feel it. Let it saturate every part of your being. Say it and embody it:
I am a love story.
I am a love story.
I am a love story.
Hold that phrase up like an offering to your soul.
Aren’t you eager to see how it unfolds now that you are no longer swallowing the torn pages of someone else’s story?
Too much work! I know that’s what you’ll say.
This, from the person willing to swallow their own nasty spit and stitches and dance naked in the moonlight—or work overtime to pay for pink-stained water pretending to be an aphrodisiac.
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