Valenwyrms Day

ISSUE #92

Valentine's Day exists to jump-start the economy during the late-winter doldrums. As with most things American, the point is to get you to buy shit. Love is the most abundant resource in the world; naturally, someone found a way to exploit it. Which is why, in this newsletter, we celebrate Valenwyrms Day instead.

Valenwyrms Day returns our focus solely to the act of loving. It is about uprooting centuries of propaganda on "how to be in love." All the rules written by misogynists and homophobes, all the institutions designed to steal fortunes and withhold power—we burn these and wash away the ashes. Love needs no grants and no permissions; it has no expectations and no guarantees. Love is only what we agree to one another, and what we have the ability to uphold.

That's why Rule #1 of Valenwyrms Day is "Fuck the rules of love." Forget all the loveline advice, the Hallmark dreams, the exorbitant weddings and the no-text timelines. There is no history untouched by patriarchy. There is only the Lover and the Beloved; both are containers of limitless size and dimension.

To love is to pirouette, a dizzying circle of attention and acceptance. It spins in our heart's sweatiest chamber, blending our desires, our fears, our strength, and our grace into a clay strong enough to bear the weight of someone else's life. Once you find the recipe, you'll see it is far greater to love than to be loved, and easier. With love, we can finally afford to be generous—it's one thing we can give and give and give away without ever losing anything, without needing to make it back, without leaving us in any debt.