“The law of gravity doesn’t forgive us. So hard to say I love you these days. I love you with urgency. I want to make a side. Without doubts. And without traps. To say I love you. Like that. Plainly.”
In this day and age it feels harder to say “I love you” than it does to say “I hate you.” Opening up, and being vulnerable with another person feels like the most terrifying thing one can do, and Varela touches upon that in her poem, ‘Love Song for Difficult Times.” This poem hurt my heart so deeply, especially the line quoted above “So hard to say I love you these days. I love you with urgency.” Varela is the type of writer who can conjure up emotions as if she is a wizard wielding a magic wand. The language she uses, and the ways in which she crafted the voice and tone leaves the audience no room to feel anything other than the depth of the sadness she is relaying. This person can not tell her person how much she loves them and I think that that is one of the saddest things a person can go through. “If it weren’t hard, Hard and tremendous. I would cast this verse and it’s cheap cadence. If it were this simple to write that I love you.” I feel that it is impossible to read these lines, and not feel a pull at your heart. She relays pain, while also relaying an unwavering love that just cannot be muttered. That is an incredible task to take on, but she executed it so beautifully, and with such eloquence it took my breath away. “I don’t want to be hurt by the absence of tenderness.” Like she is showing us that it is more painful to her to not be able to relay her love than it actually would be if she just came out and said it. That is powerful, and that is relatable to so many of us I believe (especially in a time where intimacy issues are more than prevalent.) This was such an incredible, and moving piece.