Skunks, Acne, and Onions

Michelle Dai
Mr. Schwager
AP English Literature
06 March 2014

                                                            Skunks, Acne, and Onions

Dear Lover,

I shall not write you hackneyed notes of love, nor cliche professions of passion. Enough with
red roses and blue violets, candlelit evenings and coffee houses. If anything, sodium burns red, and
cobalt, blue; both are fatally toxic. Candles are fire hazards, and the average American consumes enough caffeine annually to kill a horse on the spot. Who needs to partake in such rituals of expression of affection? Chocolates add mass to the indulger, making for undesirable form and figure, and as Albert Einstein once stated, “Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love”. Flowers are a poor economic investment, as they don’t live much longer than a week after separation at the stem.

"Ily bby", says the typical teen.

"Ily 2 gnite <3", replies the automated, uncreative mind of the recipient.

My definition of love will deviate greatly from the norms of today. True love is “looking past
one’s flaws”, or in other words, accepting the flatulence and other potentially uncivil habits of a spouse. Robert A. Heinlein reflects, “Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.” In illustration, this means putting up with the television show you normally abhor to because your significant other is obsessed with a particular bachelor in the episode. The famous Dr. Seuss once said, “You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams”. I must add one knows she is in love when she is kept awake by the loud and obnoxious snores of her bedmate. The more resounding and resonating the snore, the stronger the love.

“Sharing is caring”, and caring is loving. No, my dear. Sharing is Communism. This is America, and we can’t have any of that.

Good love should be like the stench of skunks, proliferating in the air and masking all other
unimportant things. It clears up the sinuses, refreshing and reinvigorating the respiratory system. In
likeness, true love decongests the petty, small problems in life, bringing into both lovers vitality and
rejuvenation. The lovers’ joy should be widespread and influential to anyone within their radius of sight.

Good love is like acne. What feelings lovers experience should not be held inside them, but
should make their permanent mark upon their faces, filled with the mutual affection both lovers share.

Good love is like flatulence. There is only so much one can hold back from embarrassment
before they burst, revealing to everyone in proximity their amorous feelings. This kind of love cannot be seen, but felt.

Good love is like an apathetic, disinterested housecat. It approaches quietly, unprecedented,
and loves at random times. To elicit love from it, however, you must pursue it with great perseverance and determination to succeed, and once captured, love ensues.

Good love is like an onion. It has many, many layers of intimacy and depth. As lovers discover
more about each other, they peel away those layers. Love can sometimes make one cry from a stinging heart, as onions would from stinging eyes. However, the pain changes the lovers for the better, as the onions contain antibiotic properties that are beneficial to health.

Good love should not be like a marshmallow. It is true that marshmallows are sweet, and soft,
and pleasant in many ways, but I caution you: marshmallows are the quintessence of lies, and the lying liars that tell them. Beware of love that likens to marshmallows, for it is superficial, and is mostly made up of nothing; it will not stand any sort of external force or pressure, because it is, in reality, more emptiness than substance. It may feel lovely and blissful and comfortable and perfect, at first, but obstacles and hardships, like the fat fingers of malevolent children, will crush and deform the marshmallow, exposing the weakness of the love.

What is to say of all this, you ask? Well, my dear, "love" is a misnomer for the concept
commonly associated with it, to the teenage mind. It covers up the underlying sacrifices with a blissful bandage of hugs and kisses, or money spent. Truthfully, lve ishould not be equated with fun, and the absence of fun certainly does not signify a lack of love. The mindset today is that a deficiency of fun and temporary joy must coerce a search for a new partner, one who can supply more hugs, kisses, and money. It is in the darkest times, we discover, that love is not at all fun and games. Love is blood, sweat, and tears. In such times, we realize there is more to love than just the tangible. Love is
compassion, patience, and hope. The ancient Chinese poet Lao Zi wrote, “Being loved deeply by
someone gives you strength, and loving someone deeply gives you courage”.

The immature and inexperienced adolescent mind today, however, thinks that being loved and
loving someone must lead to sexual intimacy. This is a selfish act indeed. There is a stigma against the expression of feelings, emotions, and ideas upon paper by pen. Love letters have fallen out of style, an injustice I must bring to light. Today, generalized fillintheblankecards fill up the “Spam” folder. Chain texts, devoid of any real feeling, are forwarded absentmindedly from one to another. Music today trains the teen mind to trash the body and to participate in immodest behavior. All around, love has lost its original meaning, covered by that ugliness which springs forth from immoral desire.  With all that said, my dear, I must profess my undying acceptance of your flatulence, my desire to watch the shows that I personally dislike for your personal happiness, and my admiration for our ubiquitous and prevalent stench. I wish us to be like acne vulgaris, like bad gas, like indifferent felines, like pungent onions. My love, my lover, I say unto you this: I am not a marshmallow. No obstacle would crush my affections and passions for you, as time, and time alone, will show.

With much affection,

Your Lover