In 2023, I wrote My Love in Comparison: A Critique On Modern Love. I wrote this piece out of desperation. It was a gasp for air as I felt myself drowning in the expectations and critiques of others, my head bobbing out of water enough times to profess my undying love for the way I love. The intention behind it was to write an opinion piece on capitalism’s impact on love and the transactional nature of modern relationships. The ideas running laps in my mind, I sat down to write. When my fingers reached the keyboard, my frustration flourished – my opinions devolved into rants, my curated words to cries. 

While I don’t necessarily disagree with myself, I read this with a mixture of pride and pity. It was a step out of my comfort zone, never having written an opinion piece for BrainScramble, despite its poetic nature. I’m proud of my writing, but I pity how I thought this to be a controversial take. I wrote this at a time where I was desperate for representation of lesbian love beyond my own – I wanted to see how others loved. I was reading from straight feminists, from multi-identifying queer feminists, but not specifically lesbian feminists whose ideas preached my own or struck them down. While yes, all loving is rebellion, there is no bigger rebellion than lesbian love. I spoke about gender roles, the expectation of marriage and the woman’s labour of love, but the best part about being a lesbian is that not only is it unexpected, but it actively contradicts the very concepts I once wrote of. Marriage as ownership, marriage as a legal transaction —that could never be my marriage. Lesbian marriage is a representation of the love I described; a union where no one is above another, a union that is pure in its commitment and adoration of the partner. It engages in perpetual conflict with societal expectations because there is no insistence on dominance. We have no other role but to love, to live, to be with one another. 

At the time, I swore my love must be unique compared to that of my peers; that perhaps it was a choice of partner that made all the difference. For part of it that may be so, but how could it be when their marriage is entitled whilst mine is still debated in government?

As my tongue swelled, too thick to close my mouth and blocking my windpipe, I was stuck contemplating; I could no longer speak. I am forced to wallow in my past claims comparing my love with a woman to that of a man. I question how I could have compared the vulnerability of loving to a weakness, when in a lesbian love, it can only mean strength — strength as represented by bravery and steadfastness, because I am not only persistent in my loving but consistent in ensuring such love is visible. 

“I will love a wife with every breath whether it is against my neck or in simple memory.” – These, however, are words I still recite with confidence.