"We cannot fight for love, as men may do; We should be wooed and were not made to woo." - A Midsummer Night's Dream.

When you fall in love it doesn't break. When you hope, when you really hope it doesn't break and if it does you mend it, you bind it, you build it back up with glue or bandages or crumbling bricks. You mend it straight away and you keep mending it and repairing it over and over, even if it's breaking faster than you can fix it. Even if all of a sudden it's not the thing it was to start with, it's just a pile of mending...of mended parts. When there is no broken hope or love left, when there's nothing but dust, you die. In one way or another. This is what it means to love and I'm starting to think that it doesn't happen as often as they would have us think.

My mum, so good with the sewing machine, didn't even bring out the thread, didn't even try. I know it's wrong, I know I shouldn't but I just see it as a woman's job to fix. My dad fought for her, as all good suitors should, but there comes a point when we need to take over. Perhaps tenderly, perhaps without passion or agression. Perhaps forgiveness is harder than declaring your love or approaching someone, chasing someone, convincing them to love you. Perhaps. He was stupid, my dad, he did wrong things, foolish things, things that broke what they had. He was bad but she was worse because she didn't mend it.

It wasn't real love.