For Genevieve

A Poem by C. Slade

I'm choosing you because I want to choose you.

Not because I feel like I don't have a choice.

Not because there's an illusion of sun shining through your smile and the ocean's depths in your eyes.

I don't feel like I'm following some starry design that was created eons ago, before my face was even thought of and my name was still inconceivable.

I'm choosing you and ignoring the whispers of the Gods that tell me it isn't tragic enough; it won't hurt enough to be something worthy of telling about for years after you and I are just dust.

But love was never meant to be tragic.

Love is what saves us from an eternity of death.

Because we all walk around with fire in our mouths and hell in our eyes and you, my love, are the sight of an oasis.