What's Love Got To Do With It?

I guess I needed to open this conversation.

The title of this piece slammed into my thoughts as I was painting it. The song with the same name would NOT stop playing on repeat in my head. I wanted ... I NEEDED to finish this painting (if only so I could release that damn song.)

But when something takes over my thoughts, I listen - even if I don't want to.

I'm generally more fluid with my painting, and in particular, with any poetic words or titles that emerge from my creations. I think of it more as a conversation, an ongoing dialogue.

This time, it was just the painting, sitting across from me, whispering, louder and louder and louder,   what's. Love. Got. TO. DO. WITH. IT?!

A line from that song, "who needs a heart when a heart can be broken?".

After a broken heart, some would say, "not me". Before a broken heart, some would say, "not me".

I want to talk with those who, huddled in the corner from being wounded, barely able to stand, would look up at me, through red eyes and tear-stained cheeks, and choke out the words ... I do.

I do.

I need a heart, my heart. I need to feel, even if it hurts. I am willing to experience this because it means I am alive. 

And I want to be alive.

This piece - this is a conversation with you. What's love got to do with it? Everything.

Love is the ecstatic high, the source of gut-wrenching pain, the connection that transcends distance and death.

It's the broken heart, the shared glance across the room, the choked sobs, the breath of an orgasm, the pounding of what if, the fire that means you are alive.

That little mirror, tucked away in the piece? It's for you. You've been ripped open - now look. Who do you see? What do you see?

Love brought you here.

Love never left.

Now go. Be ALIVE.