malu

“fruitcake just makes me sick”

[memoriesofuture]

im both

[emailsmalucantsend]

"I GOT CURSED LIKE EVE GOT BITTEN."

the origin of soulmates.

About two years ago I sat down and wrote my very first opinion essay. Since then pretty much everything and everyone around me changed. I'm now back and probably better than ever, and I don't say that because it's what everyone says after they take a very long break. I had a free block today in class and decided to read my first essay again out of curiosity, and turns out that I was completely wrong about the whole greek mythology soulmate thing.

Back in ancient Greece people were firm believers in the Gods of Olympus. I myself am a believer that these Gods exist or have existed at some point in history. Reading that essay again sparked a curiosity to find out if what I was talking about was correct or not. It wasn't. The real story goes like this... back when humans were first created they had two bodies, one head, and two faces. These humans shared one soul, a fulfilled and satisfied soul. Zeus wasn't very fond of the amount of power that held, or of how selfish and daring they were. None of the Gods liked how they acted self-sufficient. Zeus then decided to take matters into his own hands by splitting these humans into two. Now having one body, one head, and one face. Now having half of a soul. Humans were then destined to spend the rest of their lives looking for the other half of their soul. That's where the term soulmate comes from.

The term soulmates is the idea that every human has one person who's absolutely perfect for them. I personally think that's how it is but I don't think that a person needs to be exactly like you to be your soulmate. On the contrary really, I think soulmates are supposed to complete you. They are to some extent everything that you're not. I've met people who behave, talk and believe in the same way I do, and while I did hit it off immediately with them I just knew that they weren't my soulmate. As you may know my all time favorite song is this song called "Margaret" by Lana Del Rey, and in that song Jack Antonoff says "If you're asking yourself, 'How do you know?' Then that's your answer, the answer is, 'No'." And that's how I think you find out who your soulmate is. You simply just know.

It has been two years since I wrote that first essay and I still don't think I've felt that "I KNOW" feeling (unless thinking it's Jack Champion counts, in that case I've definitely have felt it.) but don't get me wrong I look for the other half of my soul everywhere I go, I hear him in every song I listen to, every romance movie I watch, and every piece of literature I read and write.

I hope for a sign that he's there, that he exists, and is looking for me too. I pray that he looks up at the moon and thinks about how I'm looking up at it too.

I believe that my time for love and happiness will come, that one day I'll look back and realize that I have everything I've ever prayed for. I also believe that for me to fully fall in love with someone I have to fall in love with myself, and that's what I'm currently working on. I've been spending more time with my own soul, so that when the time comes I'll know exactly what I'm missing and what my soul is aching for. Once again I'll tell you that I'm yet to feel that feeling that will allegedly consume my every waking moment, but you can trust me that once I feel it you'll be the first to know. My poetry and essays have always reflected what I felt on the inside, and that won't change any time soon.

Thank you for reading this, whoever you might be.

September 30th of 2025

Malu Canto

[emailsmalucantsend]

when you know you know.

WHAT IS LOVE? WHAT SPARKS IT? WHAT MAKES IT REAL?

These are questions I'm sure we've all talked and thought about.

Ive written about soulmates and the very different kinds of love before but today I want to go deeper into it.

I want to find out what it is, how it starts, and what makes it so real.

My all-time favorite song Margaret says that once you truly fall in love with the right person you simply just know.

And I agree with it, I think our gut deserves more credit for all the work it does.

But what kind of feeling is it? Well that I don't really know since as I mentioned a billion times before I haven't found the one yet, but you'll be the first to know when I do find him.

And since I don't know exactly what that feeling is like,I can only deduct from other feelings I felt when meeting people.

Do you know when you meet a friend's friend or boyfriend and you just get that gut feeling that they're a horrible person, and that they're definitely gonna screw your friend over.

Or when you scroll through your crush's following on instagram and you get that womanly instinct that he likes a particular girl and eventually you hear something and you realize you were right.

That's what I think that "when you know, you know" feeling is like.

Going back to my initial question, what is love?

I personally believe that love can't be labeled as just one thing.

Most people believe that love is a feeling, psychology says love is a complex or secondary emotion, which basically means that it's an emotion that consists of other emotions.

From what I know, which mind you is not a lot, love is a place, person, feeling, emotion, way of living.

I think love can truly be anything.

Love can be the look in your parents eyes when they see each other after a long day.

Love can be doing everything within your power to conquer something you've always wanted.

Love can be giving up something about yourself to see someone you love happy.

Love can be crying because your best friend is thousands of miles away, and you just miss her so bad.

Love is saying you loved your mom's food even though you have explicitly hated that particular dish for the last 17 years of your life.

Love is listening to someone talk about some really uninteresting topic for 2 hours straight just to see how their eyes shine a little brighter.

Now onto the tougher questions.

What sparks love?

I think love is a little switch on your brain that can be triggered at any given moment.

Like sometimes you meet someone and you don't exactly click until one day you have a really good conversation with them during class and realize they actually so different from what you thought they were.

I think love can spark from words, actions or maybe even looks.

What makes love real? What separates love from lust?

According to many online resources, trust, respect, and communication are the main things that make love real.

I agree.

Not a lot to question or discuss there, any human being with a brain would agree that love is impossible without trust, respect and most importantly communication.

But how do we know the difference between real raw love and just good ol' lust.

As we've discussed earlier love can't be labeled.

But lust surely can be.

Lust is that magnetic feeling pulling you towards someone really attractive even though you're well aware that they're the biggest man whore you've ever met.

Lust is like buying a new crumbl cookie flavor because it looks so good even though you KNOW it tastes like booty cheeks.

Lust is like watching the most god awful movie just for the aesthetics.

Lust is buying a book you've read and know it sucks just because the author came out with a new cover you think is pretty.

There's also a big difference between loving and wanting to be loved.

Last year I met this super sweet boy and decided to go out with him, no longer believing that I should spend my teen years looking for the love of my life.

Not soon after me and said boy started dating and I can't lie, the guy was awesome, he was sweet and super nice to me always.

But I soon realized that there wasn't a single bone in my body that actually enjoyed being with him.

"But Malu how can you be sure it wasn't lust instead."

I absolutely despised the guy, didn't even feel like kissing him.

That was when I figured out that all this time I wasn't looking for love, I was looking for someone who would love me.

Which honestly sucks more than it sounds like it does.

Bottom line is that love is everything that you see happiness in, if you can't see an ounce of happiness in it, chances are it's not love, and about that "when you know, you know" feeling, I think it's real but not in the literal sense.

Im pretty sure I've felt the feeling but apparently my gut was wrong.

Right now i'm dealing with my own personal "hell".

I don't know if I should keep going, if I should trust my gut and dive in head first, or if I should just call it a day, and admit that I might've been wrong.

Well, whatever I choose you'll know eventually, it'll probably show up on your fyp.

Thank you for reading this, whoever you might be.

January 23rd of 2025 Malu Canto

[emailsmalucantsend]

Maybe tomorrow you’ll know!

I've always been intrigued by love and all of its aspects, and even all of the bullshit that comes with love, the trust, the passion, the lust and even the desire. The whole soulmate stuff has always been one of my main interests through out my whole life. In case you don't know what "soulmate stuff" I'm talking about, I'll elaborate.

So... back in the greek gods age there was a belief that people were born with 2 bodies, 1 head with 2 faces. And they were fulfilled. There was no mourning, no empty feeling within. all was well. But one day Aphrodite the goddess of love, got her hand asked in marriage by another god (zeus I'm pretty sure) don't hold me on that tho, I'm only just a girl in the end of the day. But she however said no, and he got so mad at her that he decided to curse the very thing she cared so dearly for and that was love. So he cursed humans to be split in half and live their whole lives searching for their other half, their "soulmate".

I personally believe it, but that's only one woman's opinion. There are so many theories about love out there. For example the invisible string theory, I'm at least 90 percent sure that thats an asian belief, it basically means you have a red string in your ring finger on your left hand, the finger that has a vein that leads to your heart. And that whenever you meet your so called soulmate or true love it disappears. You might not even have met them exactly, you might've only talked to them once.

That's actually what Taylor Swift talks about in her song "Invisible String" or what Beabadoobee mentions in her song "Glue Song". She has a lyric that quotes "You've been hiding in plain sight, then appeared." Both capture exactly what in my eyes love feels like.

I also think that soulmates come in very different ways, such as friendships, relationships, mom and daughter and even people you only talk to once, like friends you make on vacation. I also don't really believe that soulmates are meant to be together forever. I think they're meant to meet what happens next is just pure luck.

One of my favorite examples are my friends, especially my friends "Jill" and "Anthony". They're always on a on and off relationship and can't have a good talk without getting on each other's asses. But the thing is even though they hate each other's guts they can't shut up about one another, every person Jill hooks up with looks like Anthony.

They both always look for each other in other people, because they can't stand each other they also can't live without one another.

And that's what I mean by meet but not stay together, don't get me wrong though I do believe that some soulmates are meant to live the rest of their lives with each other, like my friends Pedro and Duda. They fit so well together and I'm 99% sure that if you ask anyone that knows them they'll tell you that they're completely made for each other. They're so right for each other that I actually can't remember Duda before Pedro, not that she can't exist without him but that they're so right together that I doesn't make sense for them to be apart. It just feels like they've always been together. Like they were born to be together.

The last time I updated this I had one view on love, the romantic view. Today I put myself to think about every kind of love I've seen and experienced before.

Though the romantic side of love is the most common one when one thinks about love, it is definitely not my favorite kind. I believe that my favorite kind is the sisterly/brotherly love, even in people who aren't exactly your siblings.

I truly believe that my sister is my soulmate, that if I died I would always find my way back to her. At first me and her had a really rough relationship cause you know, we're sisters, we fight, we forgive, we forget and we restart.

And I think that's the beauty of love, the ability to love even through tough times. The way that we forgive people on a daily basis is just so incredible to me. How we trust friends and even strangers without even noticing. We seek them for help and give others help. We care, we're humans and we empathize with other humans so easily and I truly adore it.

The other kind of love is the love found in friendship, the warm fuzzy feeling you feel while having a good talk with your friends, the way you know you can trust them and tell them anything. Me personally, I love sitting at a coffee shop with a delicious drink in hand and a wise friend to talk to, ask them for advice, gossiping with them and laughing until I can't breathe.

Right this moment it's 10:14PM and I now have an opinion on parental love, and that's because I was here typing and expressing my very true opinions on love and my mom stopped me because she was worried I was just typing the night away and not eating anything while doing so. And the worry she had over me made me feel loved, I then stopped typing and started talking with her, my dad and grandma and it made me really happy to realize that the same kind of feeling I have when talking with my friends I also have with my parental figures.

How they've cared for me all my life with so much love and I've barely realized it because I was so focused on the other kinds of love.

I'm really glad that writing this made me realize that I don't need a "true love" or a boyfriend to feel love or to feel loved, I've realized that love isn't just in dating or guys but that it is actually everywhere, if you look around with care you'll see it too. So many people with so many different lives and so many different kinds of love, but they're all love, they're all made to love.

As I've made very clear, I haven't found the one yet, but that's okay because it's only today. Tomorrow is a new day with new people, new experiences and new opportunities. Tomorrow I get a chance to live the very first day of my of my future, I get to start over, I get a new chance at everything I've done wrong before. And I get to feel loved and make others feel loved. I don't know it all today, but maybe tomorrow I'll know..

That's my view on love, not only the romantic kind of love but the love we contain within.