"Have You Ever Been in Love?"
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"I mean, define … so there are different phases,right? That first rush — 'limerence,' I guesssome research calls it — I've — there have been cases —that's such a primal, brain-stem craziness —you find those neurons in a salamander(same feedback loop in heroin addicts, too) —so, yes, when we first met, if they had scanned our —well, I'll say mine, at least — but is that 'true'in some objective sense? To claim The Feelingfeels like it intimates … if not quite marriage,something damn close, or else you're double-dealing —sort of defrauding — which, not to disparagethe whole 'investment,' but that implicationfosters, I think, this culture of evasion
even around the word itself, which narrowsnot just the discourse but the actual mind.The way the Greeks split up the concept — eros,family affection, goodwill toward mankind,and so on, like the Inuit with snow —or, well, that might've been some linguist's bias —but part of me thinks that's the way to go,rather than frame our — that initial high as [End Page 476] either the main meal or a cheap hors d'oeuvre.Same goes for afterwards: we know how naturehates rigid binaries, prefers a curve —why all the 'in-out,' 'true-false' nomenclature?Why get tied down by verbiage? Why close doors?But that's just my experience — what's been yours?" [End Page 477]
Austin Allen's first poetry collection, Pleasures of the Game (Waywiser Press, 2016), was awarded the Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize. He is a doctoral student in creative writing at the University of Cincinnati.
