Old love is overrated

I don’t like love, but I love writing about it
 
There is just something about describing that particular feeling of butterflies fluttering in ones' chest when they get caught staring at their crush
 
I hadn’t felt those butterflies since… I don’t remember when
 
Lately, it feels more like barely alive flies are pathetically flapping around in my stomach, trying to escape the flesh-devouring acid that is threatening to swallow them whole  
 
I don’t wish for those heated, fluttery kinds of feelings to come back to me
I don’t miss them anymore
 
There was a time when I tried to force love on myself
Tried to love anybody I saw as compatible
Interesting  
Pretty
Anything that wasn’t repulsive  
 
It didn’t work
It never did and if I had kept trying it probably never would
 
I couldn’t force those warm feelings to come to me no matter how much I tried because they simply weren’t there
 
I remember staring at some of my classmates I found “good enough”
…whatever that meant
 
I would sit in class, nibble and chew on my pen as I stared at the back of their fluffy heads
Boys, girls
It didn’t matter
Whoever caught my attention was the victim of my empty, spaced-out stare that day
 
I would try to imagine…things
Things that people who are crushing on someone imagine
People who are down bad
Terribly bad
 
I would daydream of holding hands, of touching foreheads as our warm breaths mingle
I would dream up these scenarios where a stranger with a name and a face, and I would lay entangled in bed, our limbs entwined, crisscrossing, clinging to each other like wild hydrangeas cling to walls they climb
 
we would rarely ever kiss in these fuzzy fantasies of mine
there was more staring into each other’s eyes as we caressed one another’s faces soothingly than anything else
 
I wondered could I ever make this wish of mine to be loved by someone I love back come true
And if I could how would it feel
 
It was weird…
Trying to be enamored with someone I didn’t even want
 
I wasn’t lonely, but I was regretful
I didn’t want to waste my youth by spending it unloved in that special way only a significant other can love you
 
I have this notion that love feels the best when you’re young because that is when you feel the least bad about yourself  
 
When you’re young and they tell you you’re beautiful you’ll surely believe them because you have proof staring right back at you whenever you look in the mirror
 
But when you’re older
No, not old
Just old enough to have faint smile lines around your eyes even when you’re not smiling  
When you stop dying your hair for fun and dye it to hide that first gray hair of yours
When you’re skin isn’t as smooth as it used to be, and you have thunder-shaped marks on your inner thighs from all the weight you’ve gained while sitting idly, working your 9-5 desk job
 
Yeah, then.
That is when it’s hard to believe you are loved because you are beautiful both on the inside and out
 
Instead, that is when you know they think you’re beautiful but mostly if not only because they already love you
 
And you know they’re sincere when they tell you you’re just as pretty as before
And you probably tell them the same sappy thing too
 
But does it matter?  
Does it matter how others see you if you don't feel good about yourself?  
 
And I…
I don’t want to feel like that