Lightning Storms of Love
Love oh love... The greatest mystery of them all. Greater than life, some call it. Worse than any possible hell, others say. But one thing always stays a constant. It burns. Whether in a good or bad way is always left up to interpretation, but once it hits, it's too late to go back. Too late to change its course of direction. Because while it might not appear all at once, there always is that one moment when it clicks into place.
Love itself can come in so many shapes and sizes, ranging from family, friends, pets and other platonic feelings, to romantic ones. The love people talk about in books and movies. The love everyone seems to want. The love that resembles a lightning bolt rapidly striving for its destination. The love that once it hits, once you truly see and feel it, you simply can't help it as it burns. Burns so brightly that anyone around who isn't wholly blind can see it from miles away. That once-in-a-life love that strikes with a bolt so bright it cannot be missed.
The thing people seem to forget is that in order to get that lightning strike in the first place, you always need the thunder. You need a storm, dark clouds and everything. Because they are a matching set. You will never find one without the other out in nature, and neither will you find them in life.
A storm has to build up fist, reach the point where clouds can collide, and only then can lighting strike, always following a thunderous boom. Once it strikes, it hits without control, and there is not much you can do about it. You can try and protect yourself, but there is no guarantee it will work, there's always a risk. Once it hits, the damage is done. It's irreversible. Whoever was affected, whoever was hurt or saved or blessed by the gods, they all simply have to live with it. I read once that when a lightning bolt is released, it’s five times hotter than the sun. When it flies through the skies, it heats up all air around it, forcing it to expand, causing thunder. The might of that bolt causes such an impact that if one hadn't seen the lighting itself, the boom had to have been heard.
Love too, from all I've experienced in my lengthy life, seems to have that impact. It crashes and burns and heats up all around it, warming it. But the boom it causes can have repercussions. It can deafen. It can scare. It can hurt in the most unimaginable ways. The lighting itself can too, because while that burn might seem good initially, exciting, there will come a time when the wound tries to heal and realises how severe the damage really was to begin with. Because love isn't simple. It isn't a heart or a bow and arrow wrapped in a perfect bow. It isn't what we are raised hearing in books and movies about the prince who saves the princess where they constantly live happily ever after. No. Love is a lightning storm, burning all who try and cross its path unscathed. Burning all those who dare.