Fallen Fruits.

For you, I would cross any line. But would you follow her into a well if she asked? My parents, friends, and cousins often asked us that, like they knew something we didn’t. They warned us about love that consumes, about losing ourselves in it.

Reading Keats' letter to Fanny Brawne (with a tinge of misinformation on their story, I find out now), I thought of a love that overwhelms, a love so consuming there’s no room for anything else. But why must a tree bear fruit if it’s not ours to take?

I’ve heard it all before. Every word you say, I’ve already spoken. I invented the language your tongue speaks, so how can you comfort me with my own words? There’s a pretense in your care, something that never quite feels real.

I never wanted your love. I just needed to know if you could love—if I could be loved. But if I don’t sacrifice for this love, I’ll have to sacrifice this love. 

And now, I find myself wondering what that even means. To love without wanting, to love so deeply that the feeling itself is the end, not a means to something else. Maybe that’s what Keats felt—a love that burns with no promise of warmth. But what good is a love like that?

A love that leaves you empty, like a tree forced to bear fruit only to watch it rot on the ground.

What purpose does it serve then, this fruit that was never meant for anyone’s hands? A love that exists for its own sake, not to sustain, but merely to prove that it can grow, that it can exist.

Can love survive on its own? Will you reach out for the fallen fruits? Or will you pick the fresher ones?

I find that fallen apples don't sour the soil. It grows another tree full of unanswered questions.