"Oh no, not this" i think, tossing my head from side to side. "No, no, NO!". I wrench myself to my feet and plunge back out into the sidewalk and lurch myself to the side of the building. Panting, chest heaving, passersby turn their heads. I fumble with a hankerchief over my face. Gasping, clenching my teeth.

"You fool!" I upraid myself, "You irresponsible fool!" I strike my thigh with my fist. I push off wildly and start tautering down the sidewalk. Apparitions of beauty invade me, overwhelm me. Images of her dance before my eyes... I give out a barking cry of protest and sink down heavily to my knees a few yards before them. I twist about this way and that, thrashing the air with clammering arms. "HELP ME!"

But it's no use. The hideous toxin of love has been ingested and has taken. A spasm wracks my body, as powerfully and copiously, almost luxiuriently. Down there on all fours I begin to vomit out a tide of rose petals and perfume bottles and scraps of desperately scribbled love letters on expensive note paper and packets of intimate photos with swooning inscriptions of torn pages of sheet music, stained with tears on the notes of that one special song. The whole noxious, adoring mess shoots and oozes over the pavement, a bubbling hazardous spill, lethal with a debris of infatuation...

How long can anyone remain in love?

The french say, a love affair, by definition, can't last more than a thousand days...3 years

How long can what one person wants be sacrificed to support what two people need?

And if you have to change yourself, however slightly to be with someone...

What are you hiding?