West Of Canon

are a religion, actually. You get the boy. He loves you back, too.
You get to be his man. Grow up. Grow old. Grow younger in some magic
montage that lets you go to all the restaurantsballroomdancesnewyearspartieshotelrooms
you can stomach. (spoiler: you can stomach them all. You can vomit them back up after, 

and still want more.) Then, take all your perfect walksconfessionsswoonsbrokenankles in the
pouring rain. Sprinkle in a round of soft exchanges by oceanslakesideslibrariesrosegardens
and add a dash of open-mouthed kisses in the half-lit shot of floristsgazebossuitessunset
fadedcredits. Reach for it. That seemingly endless reel, the silk ribbon that never runs out of 

birthdaycakeconfettipompinkteal. Then, cut it. It’s never that easy? People who shit on this kind
of stuff– they have no idea how each film urges you to disregard the one-way loves, the loves
that will only hurt you, the one’s that aren’t love at all. They have no idea that so long as the
genre exists, it means someone believes the world can be a little kinder, a little softer, a little

more accepting of Passion and Truth and Beauty. Where would we be if we didn’t Love? Could
society, in truth, tell us any weight crushes more than the constant, sacred duty we perform,
to no one at all, ensuring that someone is Loved, that someone else is Loved, even if it’s in some 

small way. When I started my graduate studies, a professor says People laugh these movies off,
but you and I know the difference…This is the same professor who thinks their job is To be there
for the students, above all, and make sure they’re okay. That’s the only professor who will say
this to me in the four years I’m there. What worries me, is perhaps, they think 

I’m being coy, playing the field by being all rainbow and sunshine. It doesn’t matter. When they
see me wearing black for the next two years after that. Graduating between fainting and
hysterics. Worrying my surgery scars away and sleeping on the floor of the spare room of a 

stranger. Inside the house of my Heart is a film reel that never shuts off, no matter
how long the seizures last, no matter how hard the migraines hit; glowing in the beaks of swans,
the streams of fireworks, the first dances and last kisses before the inevitable love letters start

and then there’s reunion after reunion— Yes, the projectionist says. It’s all right. He plays the
next one, swift as the salt-pillars falling. Rome is burning. We are making out. The orchestra
swells. Darling, it’s really alright, he insists stroking my hair, holding my waist in a way that
makes all the flames blaze, higher and higher, and here it’s finally safe to admit:

It’s Not Going To Work. No one will ever Love as much as I do.