Jessica Tarasoff
Nov 6 · 2 min read

i always go back to the geography of affection.

lately i’ve been considering all the ways in which love is like a river -

it sprouts timid and clear, full of promises but innocuous

it grows, gains body, sometimes achieves the power and violence to reshape the land, cutting through terrain and bursting life

love is a journey, it runs fast and infinite but it will reach the plains and be still, calm, deep and rich

you can’t really see the bottom

even a river seemingly still can get you to drown, without a soul to witness it, your flesh consumed by the deep sea monsters the way it should be

like food

love will reach the arid lands and thin out, go dry

it will almost get you to believe it never existed, but if you follow its trail all the water is still there, still running, neverending

sometimes love will dry altogether and be reborn with the monsoon, like rain washing over the dirt and bringing back green to the famine

once it’s born once it’s flowing love is endless, love can’t be taken back, love can’t be rewritten fixed rearranged

it’ll just drag the trunks and dead animals to the banks

(that’s all food)

we taint it with oil and waste but it somehow survives even rotten it won’t be stopped even rotten there’ll be the promise of intervention, hope, tax payer’s well spent money to bring it back to its prime, remove this horrid smell from the heart of the city, it’s got so much potential – it’ll be done some year or the next

there’s nothing sadder than a river that dies

Jessica Tarasoff

Written by

designer mermaid / The bit that ain’t no fish, writes. Some stories in Portuguese, most in English.

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